High up in the hills of California... Avenue.

Hey internet, been a while since I updated, I started writing this like a month ago and just didn't finish, so, here goes.

Well, I have made the move to the other end of the Pennsylvania turnpike, made another visit out to Indiana's early morning dew, and prematurely fulfilled my calling to "high up in the hills of California". Ironically Kari and I have rented an apartment at the tippy top of a hill... on California Ave. Ha! We still have plans to move to Santa Cruz in April, into the bottom apartment in her grandmother's duplex. It looks like it will be amazing, the house is at the top of a hill and the beach is at the bottom (This just in, might actually be too good to be true, the owners are looking to sell the place thinking they can get over a million for it... more on this later). The past month has been full of hustle and bustle. Moving to Pittsburgh, touring this half of the country for family time over the holidays, a trip to Vegas, I have literally only spent a week of the last month at my own apartment. It was great to see all the family, the gathering are starting to grow, with cousins getting married and having babies and all that junk. There were 32 Aunts Uncles and cousins at the Rawlings gathering, and that wasnt even everyone. So many Rawlingses.
Right, so since I started writing that, our California accommodations have changed a bit. Kari's grandma let us know that the landlords are kicking her out and selling the place cause they think they can get like a mil for it. And she has to be out in a month, after living there for 13 years... something tells me there is more to this story that she isnt telling us. So we have been looking online for places to live and it looks like we will be able to find something for a reasonable price, or maybe we will just have to live out of the car, whatever, itll be good. We already have loads of people that are going to come out to visit, so I guess we will have to get a place. And hey, if you wanna experience the west coast with a free place to stay, come on over.

My employment status has elevated to "occasionally" with a trip to a temp agency Staffmark. I worked 4 days last week stuffing tax audit booklets into envelopes for the state of WV, and I just accepted a job sorting through Netflix returns from 3am to 8am tomorrow. It is simple, mindless work, and though even the simplest task takes its toll after 5100 repetitions (about how many times I figure I repeated the same arm motion when stuffing envelopes), the hardest part about it is the mental agony I go through just sitting there without a single mental stimulation all day. I think about lots of things, sometimes thinking that I should write the idea in my blog. That got me thinking about how long it has been since I updated last, though I have been unemployed for most of the time between posts. I realize that I always have something to do while I am sitting at home, something to occupy my mind. I play Nintendo, read articles, look for jobs, Stumble, my mind is too busy with other things to think my own thoughts through. It is a good reminder that I need to give my mind time to do its own thing. I am still as forgetful as ever, so i dont remember most of the things that I thought "hey, I should remember this", which is why I started carrying around a memo pad, though they dont give you breaks of any sort with the work I am doing, which im pretty sure is illegal, no 15 minute breaks, 8-4:30 with just a 30 minute unpaid lunch.


I didnt know what to expect when I started this envelope stuffing job, for some reason I was expecting some kind of slave labor set up with a bunch of sad old women sitting at cold metal tables in a room full of printers supplying them with an endless pile to work on. I show up to "Triangle Systems", enter the room in the back of a business park, turn the corner, lo and behold, there are 10 tables lined up in 3 rows and beyond that the whirring and clunking of 3 huge printers spitting out the 8000 booklets we are to stuff today. An old lady comes in and sits down next to me. We go through the procedures, the strategies for moistening the envelope glue (luckily we dont have to lick every one, not after what happened to George Costanza's fiance), and she avoids me for the rest of the day, like I was trying to talk to her about her kids and stuff and getting one word answers. Worst old lady ever. She has been stuffing envelopes for 8 years and you can tell. In my boredom I counted how many envelopes I do in a day, around 1600, and figured out I make about 4.5 cents per envelope completed.
I also completed a research study with UPMC, they are doing studies on brain injury patients. I went in and did a little memory test, she started by reading a list of numbers and asking me to repeat them, adding more as she went. I think I got up to a list of ten for that. Then she went on to letters, same drill. Then the tough part. She read a list of letters and numbers mixed together and I had to go and pick out the numbers and give them back in numerical order, then the letters in alphabetical order, I got up to 9 but couldnt handle the list of 10. She said that I was doing so well that she was having trouble keeping up herself as she wasnt used to going that far with it. I dont know if i was actually that good or if she was just used to working with more serious brain injuries... ha, but i think i did well. They then took me through some memory drills on a laptop which were fairly simple, one had to do with letters, like, is this the same as the letter we showed two letters ago, and one was spacial, like, is the dot in the same box as two boxes ago. The laptop exercises were repeated while I was getting an fMRI, so I layed in the scanner for about an hour, clicking buttons on a glove in response to the exercises, it was kind of a crazy experience being in there. It is freakin loud, and not like mechanical noises, but highly variable notes that sounded like they were coming from speakers. I dont know if it is the different magnetic resonances that make different notes, but whatever it was it was really distracting, I started getting into the rhythm and I started to make music out of the noises, haha, and kept losing my concentration on the test. I am going to try to get my results, could be interesting. They referred me to another test that is testing acetylcholine medication on TBI patients, so I am going to start that one soon as well, the first payed 100, this one will pay 250, maybe I will just do this for a living, professional guinea pig.

Ah I didnt even touch on Vegas (click that blurry picture, its a pan of the strip I took, its not actually blurry), admittedly it wasnt as exciting as my last trip, but as always it was a rockin time, did a lot of gambling, saw Cirque Du Soliel's Ka, caused some trouble, good time had by all. I also have to mention our adventure at seven springs last friday, we got 27 inches the night we decided to go, the boarding was awesome, it is not often you get to snow in serious powder like that in PA, but needless to say we were not going home in that. We sat at the bar well into the night, found ourselves in that state of special sleepyness that comes after a night at the bar, and slept on the floor in a meeting room at the hotel. So, I am finally settled in the burgh, its good to be back with all my friends and closer to all my family, and I am looking forward to the next couple months before the Californiadventure begins. Life is good.

Oh the Weather Outsides Delicious.

Philadelphia is seeing the second largest snowfall in December ever recorded, look at the table on our back porch, that is a good 18 inches of snow, its up over my knees walking around out there. It has been a couple years since I have been in the snow, and I am loving it. The first thing I did when it started piling high was whip up a batch of some good ol' snow ice cream. Heres how:

You will need
-4 cups snow
-4 Tablespoons milk
-1/4 teaspoon vanilla
-3 Tablespoons sugar

Go get 4 heapin cups of the good powdery stuff right off the top of the snow in a nice big bowl. Add the vanilla, sugar, and lastly the milk. Good substitutions for the milk would be egg nog, which I just tried- delicious, some baileys irish cream perhaps, or an creamy variation you can think of. After all the ingredients are added the powdery snow reacts strangely like flour, it kind of turns into a loose doughy mixture. Just mix it up well and youre done, eat it quick because the integrity deteriorates quickly, though the last few bites when it is just the right amount of melty are always the best. Dont be afraid to experiment, add some cinnamon, chocolate powder, fruit, go crazy. Enjoy.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra LIVE!

I am sure that many of you know what the Trans-Siberian Orchestra is and what they are all about. Making Christmas songs rock. Now, this initially seems like a pretty difficult task, one which I thought, in my limited exposure to Trans-Siberian, that they had managed to pull off. They go on a yearly tour around Christmas time, and Philadelphia was lucky enough to be pretty early on the list, just early enough to get your christmas music in before Thanksgiving (woo hoo!). Kari wanted to see them, and I thought it could be good, so I bought 2 tickets and was genuinely excited to go. The day of the concert arrives, and after driving to the Wachovia Center (I wont even say how much I paid for tickets and parking) we walk across the lot and through the crowd adorned in christmas hats and reindeer antlers I realize that I didnt really think about this at all. Did I really do all of this for Christmas music? In general I dont even like christmas music, let alone in the middle of November. I try to keep my hopes up as we take our seats, Kari and I entertained with people watching in the very diverse crowd. The people around us range from 3 to 172 years old and we have fun just observing while Ricky from Better Off Dead (great movie btw) goes up and down the stairs multiple times looking for his seat. The clamor of the crowd is full of excitement as the stage lights up and the emcee walks up on stage to a grateful roar of applause. We are told how the night is going to unfold, with a narrator telling us a christmas story interjected with the rockin Trans Siberian Orchestra. Sweet, lets do this. The narrator comes on, an old black man with a weathered tone and an audible grin, and sets the scene of some stranger going into a bar on a cold winter night. TSO starts into their first song, starting quiet and then... getting louder... and... and... and... oh... thats as loud as it gets. I thought the first two songs were some sort of joke before the concert would actually begin and they were going to wow us with their incredible sound system, but that never happened. Kari and I could carry out a conversation in normal speaking voices for the entire concert, babies 5 rows behind us were drowning out the music when they cried (cant blame them, I was pretty upset too), it was pathetic.

The rest of the concert/story played out with the man in the bar befriending a santa like character that sat by him and following the story that said santa man told. He would tell part of the story, I don't even remember what it was about now, and the last word in a section would be snow, so they would break into "Let It Snow" TSO style. Or something like that. The songs all ended up being the some over done mediocre music played by a bunch of showboating guitar heros headbanging with their long flowing hair, and the rockin violinist doing the same bend over and headbang for 4 seconds then fling hair back and run/dance for 10 seconds, all while "playing" the violin, often over her head or behind her back. The only people with hair less than a foot long on stage were the actual string section, which turned out to be a minor after thought in the concert. Yes, the string section, in the "TSOrchestra", was hardly even acknowledged, they went around to all the guitarists, narrator, pianists, back up singers, lead violinist, all by name and listing accomplishments, pause for applause for each, and then oh, ya, and the 5 members of phillys local orchestra in the dark corner in the back of the stage.

To make up for the less than exciting music, they had the previously mentioned guitar heros and violinist flailing on stage, but also featured dancing backup singers which were also a sad attempt at eye candy, and the most impressive part of the show which was the laser and light display (An interesting side note- they aimed the high powered lasers at the small sections between the sections where nobody would be blinded by them) and the pyrotechnics. The dancers ended up being an exciting repetition of- swing right arm down, swing left arm down, swing right arm out, swing left arm out, even when they were in the lime light center stage. Every song was the same desperate attempts at excitement, and for me just about every attempt was in vain, there were a couple songs that were genuinely exciting, like their best known rendition of Carol of the Bells, complete with fire shooting up with the beat, as well as the demonic sounding O' Fortuna with the entire auditorium lit up with red flames, both real and videos on every screen available. If the entire concert was carried out with the bravado of these few songs, I would have gotten more than I expected, but the few good bits were interlaced with an over hyped plethora of power chords, terrible acoustic originals from the creator of the TSO that put you to sleep (more than one with a Pachelbelian tune), ridiculous stunts (like the mini stage set up in the middle of the audience they were on for 10 minutes and it lifted up into the air and then sat back down)and a sad attempt at a story to give meaning to the whole thing. I think the show was summed up quite well by the character in the story when the old man had finished relating his fantastical tale (whatever it was). The old man asked "Well, did my story entertain you?" and after this story which fueled the whole show and they tried to inject with such excitement, you were expecting the character to say how great and entertaining the story was, however the response came... "It had its charms" and this is how the story was closed. So, was it worth the ticket price? Did it get me into the christmas spirit like it promised it would? Did the concert wow me with its rocking christmas tunes?... It had its charms.

Million Dollar Idea

Everyone has one of those great million dollar ideas. Like the guy who made the pet rock? The guy made a million dollars. Or the "Jump to Conclusions" mat? pure genius! Well we all have these ideas, which inevitably end up just that, an idea. It is rare that... wait... I am sitting in the car with my parents and I just told them what I was writing about, my dad is relating his idea right now: Personal bobble heads. He has a couple different ideas, use a stereo lithography 3D printer to make exact bobbling replicas and hand paint them, or have a stock of general faces and you could personalize the painting. So that is just another example of those ideas that we all have, you are thinking of your million dollar idea right now aren't you? Well, as I was saying, it is rare that anyone actually brings this idea to fruition, and even then the attempts are often swiftly beaten down by the reality of the consumer market.

Every now and then the right idea will surface in the right persons head and they will be one of the rare few who actually tries to make that idea a reality. I am fortunate enough to have one of those few as one of my best friends, and a rare breed they are. It takes a special bit of ingenuity, a gamblers spirit, and a touch of crazy to take that leap. My friend fits that mold, he is actually embarking on a business venture right now, investing thousands of dollars and countless hours into his idea, and I am amazed that he is actually doing it. I know I am not one of those people, I'm never going to do anything with my ideas, so here it is, you knew it was coming, my million dollar ideas.

Just a couple days ago I had this idea, which is what gave me the idea for this post. I was thinking about a friend we met in the Bahamas, Dick from the boat Rio Dulce, and the fact that I owe that man a drink, but how could I buy him one? This led me to my million dollar idea. The Webar (thats web/bar... mixed together... ok the name isnt important). Set up a streaming high quality video of the patrons sitting at the bar and create a color code or something visible to the camera that distinguishes each seat. Allow users to go online and view the streaming images and, heres the kicker, buy drinks for anyone sitting at the bar. They could buy with a credit card from an online menu and specify who it is to be sent to with the color coding, send the drink and a message to go along with it, like, maybe your phone number, maybe your name, the possibilities are endless. You can scout out the scene before you show up to the bar, buy a couple drinks and drop your name with the men/women of your choice and by the time you get there half the work is already done, you already broke the ice, thats the hardest part! Ladies would get all hussied up and show off for the camera to get free drinks, and who knows what else people would do. The bar top could be interactive, enter your name so those online can see, it will tell you when someone bought you a drink, oh man there is so much you could do with it, I'm just thinking up more as I go. You could link up to your Twitter and Facebook and all that crap! And be like, hey, im at the Webar, buy me a drink! It almost seems practical in todays techno driven world, and if nothing else the novelty would be enough to make it a success. And... I could buy a drink for someone no matter how far away they are. The Webar.

This idea is not nearly as exciting, but it is something that I think would be very useful, in fact I would be surprised if it dosnt already exist, though it didnt turn up in a quick google search. Liquid screen protector. A slightly viscous liquid you could apply to your cell phone or ipod screen or whatever that would set and harden into a clear protector over your screen, and if it gets too scratched up and worn out, a special solvent would harmlessly take of the protector completely, leaving you reapply a fresh coat or do whatever you please with your still perfect screen. It would be a simple, universally applicable product with an ever widening market. There would be problems to overcome of course, like getting the product to set without compromising screen clarity, touch screen response, that kind of thing, but things that could be overcome. I know I would buy it.

I have more ideas, but I know I have gone on too long already, if you really want to know, email me, or call my google voice!



haha, and I will be glad to discuss my ideas and yours, maybe we can have an inspiring conversation that will turn us into one of those rare few.

Peters Township HS Reunion

I'm writing this for all the fellow alum who joined me at the PTHS reunion on Saturday. Done in true Peters Township style at the Diesel night club, I wasn't sure how excited I was to attend... heck I wasn't even sure if I was attending, but I ended up going and I really am glad I did.

After graduation we set out to experience the real world and the people who inhabit it. At the time, I thought my graduating class was just your average bunch of kids, we had the go-getters and the lazy, the nerds, the jocks, the bandies, Mike Puchi... And everyone would go out and do their thing, some would succeed, some would fail, we would all just fade into the rest of the world and become just another part of the whole. That's not how it is though. And I didn't realize that until Saturday night. I have experienced the people in the real world, their work ethic, their intelligence, their personal hygiene habits, and I just went with it, its the real world, that is just how people are. But this Saturday I realized that is not just how people are, that's how the average person is, but the people I saw that night are not average. I walked into a room of good people who are ambitious and successful, and I was a little surprised at how glad I was to be there among them. I found myself talking to people that I hadn't spoken a word to since high school, as I am sure many people did, and I actually cared, I wanted to hear what they have done in the last 5 years and it is because they are good people who actually have something say, I want to hear what they are doing because they are actually doing something. Had they changed since graduation? No, not a bit, I just didn't appreciate it until it was put into perspective by reality.

There is nothing more that can be asked of you than to do something with the lives you have been given, and you are doing it, so, here's to you, PTHS class of '04, keep doing it.

Bad and Awesome

I started my last post with disappointing news that I would not be going on the sailing trip. A fact that is even more depressing as I follow my brothers progress with the boat he is crewing on and the amazing experiences he is having, like this nonsensical awesomeness... he got pictures of sharks jumping out of the water... I didnt even know awesome got that awesome. I regret that I have even more disappointments this time as well. I have been planning on moving to San Diego with Kari where she got placement for fieldwork for three months, there were contracts signed, plans were made, and then last week they called and told her that they cannot afford to take her in as a (non-paid)student... so after all of her classmates have all of their placements figured out, she is back out again looking for somewhere that will take her in. There are prospects in Texas, Arizona, Boston, Virginia, all over the place, but... who knows what will happen. I am definitely moving back to Pittsburgh in December, though even that has been tainted with a bit of misfortune. I was supposed to be moving into a house with a few of my friends when a current resident moved to Colorado, but turns out the guy decided to be all ambitious and go to medical school instead of taking the nursing job in Colorado. So we have no room at the house and are mow looking for apartments around the area. It wont be too hard to find something, and it will be nice to live without roommates, Kari wasn't too excited about living with 5 other guys anyway.

The last few weeks I have been transforming into a nocturnal creature due to my work schedule, and it is great. We have started to work overnights in preparation for the biggest day of the year, Black Friday, or as it is officially called by Toys-R-Us, Green Friday, because they make so much money. My work nights are 10pm to 6am and I try to keep a similar sleep schedule when I am not working also, so I am up till at least 6 every day. A lot of people would look at this as a big pain, but i actually kinda like it, plus I get a whopping $1 an hour extra. I get up some time between 12 and 4, so I have time to do all the stuff that has to be done during the day, but then most of my waking hours are during the night. They say that nothing good happens after midnight, but I beg to differ. I have always been most productive after the rest of the world is asleep, I have written about that before. The things to do at night are far fewer, and therefor produce fewer distractions, I have nothing better to do than work on my resume (click that link there and not only can you see my resume, but you can edit it! Ah the power and wisdom of google), or do some dishes, or maybe write a blog.

OK, so I just got back from work, and another benefit of being out late, you get to experience all the crazys that inhabit the night. For example. I went out for food during our "lunch" break (interestingly they call it a lunch break no matter when you are working, in this case the break is at 2am) and when I came back, my coworker and I were walking through the parking lot when the sound of screeching tires caught our attention. We look over to see a car 30 feet away, maybe a Dodge Stratus, careening over the curb of the street that goes by the store at a good 40 mph. It was airborne as it flew over the 20 feet of grassy hill between the street and the parking lot, landing in a spray of shrubbery and dirt as it landed in the landscaping around the parking lot, crunched over the concrete barriers at the front of the parking spaces, its tires flattened by now it went sideways across the lot, hitting off the barriers in the spaces opposite, almost running into the building, at this point I expected things to stop, a driver who had been sleeping at the wheel to get out shaken... but they kept going, burning metal as the rims spun on the pavement, thankfully headed away from us towards the back of the store, they slid around the back and out of sight just as we heard another set of screeching tires, this time accompanied by a siren. The cop ripped through the side lot (opting to take the entrance to the lot that was 10 feet before the spot where the chasee had decided he wanted to go through) after the guy, and I hurried over to the other side of the store to see the rear entrance where they would have exited the lot, I got there in time to see that the car had lost control when it tried to make the turn out of the lot on flat tires and wound up nose hard into the embankment across the street. The cop was out, gun drawn, yelling at people to get on the ground and a woman was screaming, and then... I went back in to the store eat the panini I just bought. After relating the story to the rest of the crew in the break room, they went out to have a look at the damage done, mostly just to the shrubs that were now scattered on the lot, and watch the arrests, there were swarms of cops cars within a few minutes patrolling the area, which must have meant that someone got away, so I made sure I locked my car. I will be checking the news to figure out what the deal was, but for me that made for the most exciting night of work at Toys-R-Us I will ever have.

Well that was fun.

Google Voice

Hey internet, look at this, Google voice, you link your phone numbers to a google number you pick and google works their magic to make stuff awesome, but really what you need to know is that you pick your own phone number, and the good ones will go fast. I got 754 BRENDOR, so... mines awesome, but act now if you want a good one. http://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html

So you will go request an invite if you want to keep up your intercred, and if you need me, you can get me at 754 brendor.

I'm All Over It

Okay, so the boat thing didnt happen. The frog said he wanted to leave this week, I told him I would look into travel options and whatnot and call him monday, it actually seemed like it was going to happen, and... his number was out of service. Must have gone back to frogland. Oh well.

The point of this post is really to express my admiration for the musical genius that is Jamie Cullum. A friend introduced me to him in high school after his first US release- Twentysomething. I was instantly enamored with his sound, he showed songs that I already knew from a totally different angle, and his originals sucked me in with their catchy melodies and jazzy beats. He does covers that you would never expect, like Pharell's rap crappin hip hoppin "Frontin", and totally spins it, jazzes it up, and turns it into something that is good, no, great. Twentysomething contains covers of some songs of today, like the aforementioned "Frontin" and Radiohead's "High and Dry", but also adds a little pop to some songs from the past, like Frank Sinatra's "I Get a Kick Out of You" and the classic "Singin' in the Rain". Twentysomething is not even why I am writing this, I should move on.

A couple of years after Twentysomething's release, the pending release of his second album "Catching Tales" got me excited, though I was skeptical that it could get any better than Twentysomething. The release of the first single "London Skies" fueled my concern that I would be dissapointed my the album, and upon its full release my concern was confirmed. Now dont get me wrong, the music is great, I still love it and many say it was an improvement, it just wasn't for me, didnt suck me in, lost some of the jazz i think. Just after the release I went to see Jamie play to a sold out Byham Theatre in Pittsburgh and he was incredible, full of energy, it was amazing to see the genius just oozing out of him on stage. Any doubt I had was gone. Then there was nothing for 4 years except little updates that he was working on some things, a rogue show now and then, some radio interviews, and a pretty sweet collaboration with Clint Eastwood on Gran Torino which got him a Golden Gldobe nomination for best original composition. He finally announced the release of his new album "The Pursuit" and went on tour, one stop being New York's Carnegie Hall, which I attended and it was awesome, just got me more excited for the new album.

Afraid that Jamie's music was headed in the wrong direction for me, The Pursuit had potential to turn me into one of those snooty "I like his old stuff" people. The first single "I'm All Over It" was released a couple weeks ago... I am so happy. It brought back all the excitement and drew me in just like Twentysomething did. He released the video which is crazy cool, and then, in accordance with his obsession with twitter, did a live video broadcast for his twitter followers. The broadcast is probably the best example of just how good he is at what he does. When an album is released it could be the product of so many alterations and polishing that it sounds nothing like the original recording. Jamie doesn't need polishing, and he proves it. Twentysomething was recorded and mixed on analog tape, meaning almost straight from the instruments and his voice to print, and this live twitter show is another example. Jamie sets up a mic and a webcam in his kitchen, and in perhaps the most informal situation possible, cranks out some damn good music, this might be more impressive than anything else I could show you, a recording some girl from Singapore did of her laptop playing the show Jamie did in his kitchen, broadcasting over twitter, watch it, really. In the broadcast he asked for requests, saying that he is sure that some people have gotten ahold of the new album even though it is not to be released until next year... which fueled me in a search through the dark alleys of the internet, which turned out to be pretty easy, and I am now listening to the full album. In all of its glory. Jamie has done it again, injected the new and old with his jazzy flavor while continuing to progress his style, produced some originals that will be played over and over, and created an album that could appeal to you, your grandma, the stinky guy at work, and most importantly, me. Thanks Jamie. You rule.

Stumbling Along

Still in philly. Working at Toys-R-Us. It isn't exactly exciting, but it is satisfying to be working again, no matter what it is. I am enjoying my time, and in an attempt to take advantage of my current situation I am in contact with a guy who just bought a boat and needs it delivered to Florida from Connecticut. This might be the only job I will ever have that I can go up to the store manager and ask for a month off so I can go sail a boat to Florida and get a "yes" without hesitation. He did say he would really rather I didnt go, but thats as much resistance as I have seen. A while back I posted my profile on a crew finder website, not really thinking anything would come of it, as there are thousands of profiles on there. I had forgotten about it until about a month ago when I got a message from a guy who just bought a boat in Connecticut and needs it delivered to Florida. He lives in France and makes a living as a chef on yachts. It sounds great and he seemed like he had at least a basic knowledge of cruising and would kind of know what is going on. He is clueless...

I have talked on the phone with him a few times and he just gets more and more confused every time. We were originally supposed to leave on the 15th, but after his arrival in the US on the 2nd I guess he realized he had much more to do than he thought, and every call after that he has become more and more hopeless, to the point that I think that if I dont take it upon myself and go up and take the boat out of the slip myself, he might just stall until its too late. Everyone keeps telling me this is a bad idea... I am going to end up sodomized and finely chopped into chum by a crazy french chef... whatever, I miss the ocean, and I think he seems ok. It is kind of serving as a justification to me that I can go off sailing and it dosnt really affect anyone (except the less than thrilled Kari), makes my less than ideal situation worth it, in my head.

So other than that, theres not a lot going on in my life, not a lot to write about. Work is fairly routine, the most interesting about it is the people, the guys that work in the storeroom with me are pretty cool, but there is of course the requisite crazy. Unloading the truck one day I found myself in a conversation with one of the requisites about the reptilian overlords, the boy of wonder, Friday night mudwrestling and Saturday night monster trucks. After a contemplative silence, me going back over the absurd stream of consciousness pouring from this mans mouth, him, brewing his next profound insight, he lifts a box, looks at me and pauses as it clunks onto the rollers, our eyes locked "How well do you think the average human can handle the truth?", and goes on with his business, leaving me to marinade a bit in the broth of that insight. Thats pretty much how every interaction goes with him, lots of questions about the establishment, whether they care, why you care, if anyone cares, "do you consider yourself a good person" "sometimes I dont know if i am a person at all", "Good morning" "thats what they want you to think".



I would like to take this time to do a little spot for something that has taken up a lot of my time the past few years. A program called StumbleUpon (I just got lost for a good 20 minutes just by going to the page to get the link). They have over 8.5 million subscribers, so I am sure that some of you are already stumbling away your time like me, but for those who have not discovered StumbleUpon, tread carefully. This is no joke, you will waste time, it is an absolute guarantee, if you are have an addictive personality, very little free time, no self restraint, cataracts, back problems, are or may become pregnant, well then this is not for you. StumbleUpon is a simple idea, you supply them with interests, a quick selection of the columns of my interests gives : Archaeology Astrology Astronomy Gambling Genetics Geography Geoscience Psychics Puzzles Quizzes Racquetball. And after you supply them with a list of interests, they supply you with a button. And when you click that button a website comes up that others in the 8 million subscribers thought was interesting and that you would be interested in it as well. Its that simple. They of course go far beyond that by giving you a thumbs up and thumbs down button, giving you suggested interests to expand into depending on what thumbs you give, allowing you to network with other users, etc. etc. I have given a thumbs up to 351 sites and they can all be seen in my profile, I have worked long and hard on that list. So if you are a stumbler, add me as a friend, maybe i will share things with you, and if you are not, join us in our time wasting ventures into the interwebs.

Another amazing program. Picasa. Have you seen the new facial recognition feature? You give it one sample of a persons face and it goes off and finds more pictures of them, its incredible, I have tagged hundreds of pictures with peoples faces with hardly any effort, and it is remarkably accurate, in 100 suggestions of myself, the only inaccuracy was that in one picture it thought that Alan was me, a very forgivable offense. It tags them in sync with your google address book, and I dont even know what it can do from there. Google, you amaze me.

To a tree, who in the proper conditions could live an infinite amount of years, struggling with disease and damage day after day towards infinity, the agony of death must be just that much more devastating with so much unrealized potential.

Random Bag of Crap. Woot!

Now, I feel a little strange about posting this on here, just because I don't know if all of you really appreciate the magnitude of this accomplishment, or at least the significance it has for me. Some of my closest friends and family know how much this means to me, and I know you are all happy for me and I thank you. So anyway, you must be wondering what is such a big deal. It is a Random Bag of Crap (or BOC, as we Wooters call it (or Bandolier of Carrots, Bulgarian Olympic Committee, Blinged-Out Cabbage, etc (you get it))). Now that doesn't sound exciting, and they make every effort at woot.com to make it unexciting, but the orders flood in at an incredible pace. Wooters wait for this item, hitting the refresh page over and over when a new item is about to arrive, and when one of these babys pop up, it is a scramble to get through the ordering process before the servers go down and/or all of the BOCs are sold. They sell around 2000 every time, and it is near impossible to click your way into getting one, as evidenced by the stats they put out after every woot item, here showing a blistering .089 seconds between orders. So why this fervor for a box of self-proclaimed "crap". Well woot has a new deal on something every day, they buy out excess and refurbs and things like that from other wholesalers for cheap and then put it on woot.com for a great price, this leaves them with some spare items sitting around, either too few to list, too damaged to sell, to crappy to put a price on, or who knows what else, and all of this randomness culminates in the BOC. BOCs have been known to house Nintendo Wiis, Xboxes, SLR digital cameras... or broken RC cars, obscure action figures, loads of cheap random cases, useless gadgets, anything imaginable really, and for $8 shipped, it is well wirth the gamble. I have been trying for years, literally years, to get one, and the last wootoff, on September 25th, was finally my time.

Order pace: 0m 0.089s

Woot wage: $122,049.53

Woots sold: 1499

I resisted the urge to post about this as soon as I got it, because I know the biggest question would be, well, what is in it. So I waited, and just a few minutes ago the mailman buzzed my apartment and I knew what was in store for me, so I bounded down the stairs and gazed with delight upon the hefty box that awaited. After a quick pic to text to friends and family, I opened her up and was shocked by the quantity of crap that stared back at me from inside the box. I started digging.



2 Smith and Wesson Galaxy 3 LED flashlights, with blue LEDs
1 Xpal iPower Power on the Go for the iPhone
1 Thermor wireless indoor/outdoor weather station with forecasting technology
1 DXG digital camcorder with MP3 player and 5.1MP digital camera capabilities
1 set of Sansa earbuds (as well as one pair with the camcorder)
2 EzyFlare emergency electronic flares
1 Energizer Energi To Go iPod spare battery pack
1 white cheese grater thing that I have not figured out yet
5 Excalibur vinyl bags roughly 18x12 inches with picture of scary red horse head
3 Daiwa bags, roughly 9x12 inches with a clip, a pouch, and a single pen pocket
1 horribly cheap looking air pressure gauge with pocket clip



So there it all is, it holds true to its name, and it was everything I had hoped and dreamed about and more. I will go online and try to figure out the value of my crap when I get back from work, but I think everyone can agree it was worth the $8 and the effort. Right?

Next to a Dream, Be a Laugher

Last night I lay in bed restless, as inevitably happens because I try to get to bed reasonably early but sleep in every morning unreasonably late. This attempt to force sleep sometimes brings on a state of mind with which I am sure a lot of you are familiar. You lay there thinking about all kinds of random things, you try to stop thinking and get to sleep but your mind goes on without your permission anyway. And then, once your mind starts to give in to the siren song of sleep just a little, your normal thoughts start to meld into the fantasism of the dream world and your rational thoughts turn into completely irrational situations. The worst (best) time for this to occur is when you start to travel to the Land of Nod in the middle of a lecture. You still hear what is going on but it gets transformed somewhere in your half dream state and you get the urge to yell out ridiculous things that make so much sense but then when you jolt into full awakeness because you are about to yell out this packet of brilliance you realize the insanity that was about to sprout from your mouth and catch yourself just in time to not make more of a fool of yourself, though everyone is already looking at you because you just had a miniature seizure when you landed back on earth, probably for the 15th (and not the last) time that class. I have found myself in this situation just a few times, and have never given in to the urges of the dream world, but you have all either seen or heard of it happening. The poor kid who spouts out something about Macbeth being a fish or some such nonsense. Or maybe that just happens in movies.
Ok, I didnt plan on going there at all, that just kind of came out, what I was planning on writing about was laughing, because in my thoughts, for some reason, I thought about the tent we borrowed from Kari's Pap. I was thinking I hoped I got it dry enough the keep stored away and hoped her Pap wouldnt be put out by my packing job or something. And when I thought of him, the thought that came to mind was him laughing. For some reason that intrigued me... I intrigued myself I guess... so I thought on it more. I thought of my own Grandad, he was laughing. Papa was laughing. My brother was laughing, my friends were laughing. Maybe it is just me, but I realize that when I am mentally recalling someone, their laugh is the clearest image in my head, maybe its because it is linked with a strong emotion, a good emotion, and always has a distinctive sound, it seems like a laugh would be the best way to remember someone, maybe we are programmed to remember like that. I think you can tell a lot from someones laugh, whether it is genuine or forced, outgoing or reserved, whether it goes on just a little to long, or I guess whether it exists at all. While writing this I have been thinking about people, and I dont have a laugh on file for everyone. Maybe I just forget, or maybe some people are just better remembered otherwise, maybe I dont remember those forced, reserved laughs, or maybe some people just dont laugh enough.

In this world I have just created where people are split into being remembered with a laugh or without, I think I surround myself with laughers, and I think I am myself a laugher for most people. It is important to me to be a laugher and its something everyone could strive for. Be genuine, be happy, let it out, and thats how you will be remembered. Be a laugher.

Ungainfully Employed: Toys-R-Me

So, I am currently in the car on my way to Pittsburgh, my third trip in three weeks to get out of philly. My philly getaway last week was a camping trip to Chincoteague Island in Virginia. My friends Jon, Julie, Steve and Jess joined Kari and I for Labor day. Camping and beachin with a good group of friends. Hard to beat that. I need to make some friends in philly, I am at a point at my new place that I am getting bored with just me and my roommates, but I am not motivated enough to go out and actively try to make some new friends since I will only be here a few months. I talked to a guy about a weekly poker game at the apartment complex I am in and it sounds like a handful of old guys that sit around and play 7 card stud for quarters. So thats pretty awesome, I will be there next week. Maybe I will make some money... a call from my lawyer last week made me think that money might be a more pressing issue than I had thought. Apparently they didnt forget about the 75,000 dollars in hospital bills floating around. I cant believe this crap is still going on. Just leave me alone with my money. Well... their money. Just leave me alone.

And also on that note, I got me a job! At Toys-R-Us! I had to pull some strings, but I got an interview. I showed up and was directed to the break room, where 4 others were waiting for the group interview also. So it was me, Brian, an 18 year old kid who dropped out of school when he was 13, "was not good with people" and usually slept in till 5 or 6 pm, and told this all to our interviewer, Emily, a 16 year old cheerleader who needs more spending money, Rebecca, a 19 year old mother of one who said nothing but "I don't know" the entire interview, and Caitlin a 20 year old girl who just started school at a local university. Spoiler alert: if you are planning on interviewing at Toys R Us in the near future, this may ruin the experience for you, and it is definitely cheating.

They start off by having everyone say their name and describe themselves with an adjective that starts with the same letter as their name. I started off with a moment of brilliance (oh brilliant would have been good too) with the word benevolent. after another minute or so of pondering, nobody else could think of anything for themselves, finally Caitlin chimed in with Cute Caitlin, and nobody else came up with anything for a while, the interviewer started asking for anything that started with their middle or last name letters too and brian finally came up with Fun from his last name, and then after a few more minutes he helped out the other two speechless girls with Joyful and Righteous. Off to a good start. For the next exercise they brought in 5 random toys and had us stand up and sell them to the group. I got Call of Duty: World of War. Brian was pissed I got the easy one. After a good deal of mumbling and "I dont knows" from the others when the interviewer asked such difficult questions as "Would you recommend the slingshot spongebob for my one year old?" (which brian insisted would be fine) we were ready to move on to the final exercise. We were paired up and found out about our partners and then tried to convince the interviewer to hire them. Another bombardment of "I dont know"s, though I think I did Cute Caitlin justice. For the finale we were given a "trophy" which was a bop-it game, and gave an acceptance speech for the job pretending we got it. I stood up with a pained expression, some sniffles and an embarrassed look away from the crowd and confessed "I promised myself I wouldnt cry", but I pulled it together long enough to thank my fellow interviewees and interviewers (working in that my interviewer Ilene's name was beautiful and is my grandmothers name also) and some other junk. This reminds me of another momentof interview brilliance I forgot to mention before. At my Cutco interview we were asked to give 3 words to describe ourselves, I said Intelligent, Modest, and AWESOME. She didnt get my joke and wrote it down, I let it go. We were then called into another room individually and told if we got the job. Brian came out and gave us a thumbs down and a raspberry and I didnt see the other three, I was the last one in and correctly guessed that they hired me, caitlin, and cheerleader. So I start within the week, unloading trucks, working the cashier, the sales floor, look out Toys R Us, here I come...

Some random thoughts: Lime Gatoraid Rain tastes like melted green ice pops, it is delicious. A real man always has extra room in his luggage. I just held my breath through both Blue Mountain tunnels in a row. whew. almost passed out. A law abiding citizen always uses turn signals. Nobody is going to steal your shopping cart.

You wish you lived in Pennsylvania

Well, good news, I am officially a PA resident once again. I have moved into a new apartment in Bensalem, in northeast philly. I have been keeping myself busy looking for a job the past couple weeks, with depressingly poor results. I have applied to a ridiculous amount of jobs, finding them on craigslist, the paper, roaming the streets. I have only gotten 3 calls from all those applications, one was from a "balloon artist", seriously, I applied to be a balloon artist, and at $10 an hour I got that nonsense out of the way, another call back was from Vector Marketing. There are probably some of you out there who know what that means already, well, I didnt know what that meant, all I knew was that I got a call back from a marketing firm to do customer service work and she told me to dress nice for the interview. I show up to a little office complex and enter a room with 8 other people sitting clueless at a table making small talk. Two of them were driven there by their parents. The rest were a mish-mash of ethnicity, age, and sanity. I got practically laughed at when I said I had a college degree. She started giving a presentation about the job and I was already feeling out of place... then I saw the word Cutco. It all went downhill from there. After sitting through almost an hour about how to sell knives and how their pyramid scheme was your chance for great success, I left with my head held low. I was one of the lucky 2 people to get a call back later that day, and I had to respectfully decline. I thought about it though. Thats how desperate I am. I considered selling Cutco and being a balloon artist. I currently have a pretty promising prospect at a valeting job, going back for interview #2 today, and a friend on my new soccer team said his wife can get me a job at toys-r-us. So, still slightly depressing, but hey, its work. And I recently put out some applications for some research positions, so hopefully those will play out.

And on a happier note, and one of the reasons I need that job, I just bought my first car and dang is she a beaut. It is a 2003 Jetta, charcoal grey, with black Motegi 17" spoke rims, and it is immaculate. The guy who sold it took care of it with an intensity that it will never experience again in the hands of its new owner, and it shows, without a flaw on the interior or exterior. All I have is the picture from the ad, but I will put some more up in the near future.

The move to a new apartment has gone pretty well, the only downside to the whole thing is... we are living in a den. After much debating and deal making, we decided that we would move into Brooke's second bedroom until December when we go back to Pittsburgh. Turns out that she lost the 2 bedroom she wanted and all that was left was a one bedroom with a den, which we agreed to stay in, maybe ignorantly. So Kari and I now live in Brooke's 8x9 foot den, and it is working out quite well. Somehow. The complex owns a marina and I had hoped to bring my dinghy up to keep there, but the guy told me I have to pay $60/foot even for a 7 foot tender... so sadly the dinghy remains in Grandad's garage in NC. I guess that the boater hospitality I had experienced in my previous journeys doesnt exist everywhere.

So, other than job searching and car buying, I joined a soccer team. Spruce Goose FC! And we just started practice, it seems like it will be a good time. And hey, thanks for the compliments on my guacamole recipe, with such a positive response, it is good incentive to get some more recipes up, so look for some in the future.

Avocado, to some people you are holy.

Many of you who know me know that I enjoy a little adventure, and that the adventure does not stop in the kitchen. When I cook, I have fun with it, and over the years I have learned to turn that fun into something palatable, even delicious. When I cook I do it different every time. I have developed some vague guidelines, and developed some skill in getting things to turn out like I want them, like sauces, marinades and whatnot. Many of my dishes have been met with great accolades from my guinea pigs, and of them all, I dont think any have been accepted as unanimously as a good batch of guacamole. Over the past year, guacamole has been a common feature in my creations, it was a pleasant surprise when I found all of the essential ingredients in the market in the Bahamas, so it was often on the menu. The key to good guacamole is to pick the right avocados and to use them at the peak of their ripeness, just the right amount of squish. I like to use hass variety. The second most important ingredient is the cilantro, use fresh stuff and destem it as best you can, if you are going to use dried cilantro, you might as well use dried avocado, and they dont even make that, so just stop.



2 large hass (they are small these days, 3 might be necessary) or 1 large Florida avocado pitted and... coarsly mashed? (you get the idea)
3 T lime juice, or half a lime
1/2 t chili pepper
1/8 t cumin
dash of parika
1/4 c fresh cilantro chopped (I love cilantro, you may want to use a little less)
1/4 c chopped onion
1/3 t seasoned salt
1/2 t salt, preferrably kosher or sea salt
1/4 t fresh cracked pepper
1 small tomato, seeded, chopped
some hot pepper, see below

Optional but highly recommended additions
1/4 t cayenne pepper
1/8 c banana pepper diced
splash of EVOO
splash of Tabasco sauce
dash of garlic powder or a minced garlic clove

For the hot pepper, use 1 jalapeno for some kick, some seeded pablano for the weak of tongue, or for some extra kick, a habanero will do the trick, or the Bahamian goat pepper will spice up the guac with a mere square centimeter of the insanely spicey fruit. And the banana pepper adds some great flavor, once you use it you will be missing it every time you have bananaless guac after that. If I get a particularly good avocado, I like to chop it pretty rough, if the flavor can hold strong with a big chunk of pure avocado goodness, you have to embrace that, you can make a sort of guacasalsa with nice rough cut on the tomato and onion as well. Of course, all of this in subject to your own tastes, and actually I totally guessed on all of it, having just made it in a kitchen with absolutely no measuring devices aside from some spoons, I will probably come back and tweak the recipe here and there later. Good luck, I will leave you with a little ditty, original artist unknown, popularized my my father in the produce section of every supermarket he has ever entered.

Avocado, to some people you are holy, but you're just guacamole to me.


Edit: A few people have made the recipe and said it is great, thanks! I just wanted to add a couple comments. I forgot to stress the importance of letting the finished guac sit for a while before consumption, an hour or so at least, it helps to let the flavors meld. And I just made a batch with a florida avocado which didnt turn out as well as it had in the past, but I had only used one when I bought it at a little street side produce vendor in Florida, so I may be spoiled, the one I bought here was strangely sweet and too watery, I think that I will only recommend the larger florida avocado if you are actually in Florida.

One Billion Animal Crackers

Our days in Vegas got my friends and I on a constant gambling rush. To fill in the gaps between stints at the tables, we played a game taught to us by Chris. The rules of the game: One person is asked a question that has a numerical answer, one that the answer is not definitely known and preferably that cannot be estimated with great accuracy. For instance, we asked questions like how many gallons are in the pool at the Paris, how many grams does a Ford Focus weigh, things like that. The estimator writes down the answer and his work is done. The others in the group then begin bidding on the number they think the estimator estimated. Bidding starts at, say, 10,000 gallons, if someone else thinks the number is higher, they up the bid, 20,000 gallons, 25, 30, 40, and it keeps going up until nobody wants to go any higher. At this point the real number is revealed and if it is indeed higher than the highest bidders number, then everyone owes that person (we played $1), if the actual number is lower than the highest bidders number, then the high bidder owes everyone else.
We chose zack to be our estimator, just because we knew he would give us some interesting answers. We were not dissapointed.

The Eiffel Tower is 7,500 feet tall
There are 23 million platypuses in the world
There are less than a million white people in Africa
There are 1 billion animal crackers eaten every day

So, ya the game is a good time, have fun with it.

Viva

I sat with a man named Bill on the flight out of Pittsburgh, it was his first time flying on an airplane. He is 68 years old. Bill works in the oil fields and was sent out of Oklahoma to Fayetteville PA to check out some work going on there. What do you call a funeral in Oklahoma? Karaoke. Frightened by his fathers bout with Alzheimer's, he finds comfort in the fact that he has a great memory, especially for some things, like jokes. He can remember any joke with detail, where he heard it, who told it to him, so well even that a few times he has told a friend a joke that he heard from them and they will laugh like they never heard it and ask where he learned that one. His brother told him the Karaoke joke. His oldest son died in a car accident in '91, his wife died of cancer in '99, his youngest hung himself in March. He still has 6 surviving sons and a daughter. He had lots more jokes. I wish I had the memory for them that he does.

Dallas to Vegas. I sat next to the reason so many people hate America. She was the incarnation of what I imagine maybe your typical European would think about when you say American housewife. Overweight with a pink frilly blouse on, a handbag that was probably a top of the line knock off bought by her also overweight husband, who looked like he was terrible at golf even though he plays a lot. I really am not a judgemental person usually, but I hated these people after seeing them for 4 seconds. She ordered a bottle of Aquafina soon after sitting down, not just water, but Aquafina, but she supposed it would be allright if they brought her another kind. Even after proving their imminent mundaneity, I put the bait out for a conversation by making a comment about the circular crops that she seemed so interested in and kept leaning over to see. She broke into a conversation about her facebook farmland and my brian turned off. I have no idea what happened for the next half hour or so, but I am fairly certain she kept talking about facebook. The rest of the trip was full of insightful comments like "there is another plane down there", "oh we are in the dessert now", "oh I can see cars ("honey you cant see cars from up here") oh, no those arent cars", and as we descend in altitude and are obviously flying over houses in the Vegas suburbs "those must be houses!" "I can see cars now!". It only made landing in Vegas that much sweeter.

On the trip in, my friend Chris asked if I would back him, giving 10% of his $1000 tournament buy in in exchange for 10% of the winnings. The kid is the best tournament poker player I know, so I went for it. He was playing in the tournament when we landed and Zack and I went to see him, which left me in the poker room with Zack and we both sat at a $1-3 table. The poker room in Ceaser's is possibly the toughest in the strip, maybe with the exception of the Rio, which is full of spillover from the WSOP main event, and I was sitting down at a real poker table for the first time in a lonnnnng time. I lost $500 my first 5 hours in Vegas. And then Chris tanked his well earned above average stack of 400,000 on an epic bluff, the same way I lost most of my money, so I certainly cannot get mad, he played well. So 4 hours at a poker table and I did not see a single hand better than 2 pair. I was not playing my best poker ever, but my aggressive style requires that I actually make a hand every now and then. If I make a big bluff and get caught in it, I can make that pay off later when a player makes a loose call thinking that I am bluffing. Well I can't capitalize on those loose calls if I dont have a hand that can beat anyone. To give you an idea of the crap for cards I was getting, I lost $400 in two hands, the two times I got 2 pair all day, the first I looked at K 10, both spades, the best hand I had seen all day, and it checks around the table so I check in late position hoping for big things on the flop. flop comes A K 10 rainbow and I am loving it. nobody raised preflop so I cant be facing any pocket pairs hitting trips or AK, maybe I should be scared of A 10. I raise, he reraises, I go all in, he shows AK. Whatever. And I lost a couple other big bluffs, and like I said I never got a chance to get paid from them. Well after that disaster I wasnt sure what I was going to do for the rest of the trip if gambling was going to treat me like that. Luckily I found my calling in a little game called War. What is it good for? Making lots of money.

We saw the table in the Paris hotel where we were staying, a big bright sign saying Casino War, and we had to figure out if they were actually playing the ol' classic for money. Turns out they are serious. I sat with $20 or so, a $5 minimum bet, the dealer doles out a card face up to each player, and, perhaps with a little dramatic flourish, he flips his own card. His is higher he takes your money, yours is higher you double up. For serious. And if you go to war, you match your bet and each gets another card, if you win, you win your original bet, if you tie again, you get double! And that is how I turned my luck around. for the first 2 days we sat at the war table for a bit every time we went through the casino and I didnt lose a single time for 2 days. It made no sense. I finally lost when I ventured out of the Paris and played at O'sheas, I lost $100, put up another $100 and lost 90 of it, I must have been off my game. I recalculated my strategies and turned my $10 back into 150, and when i stood up with that 150 I saw the roulette table had a streak of 7 reds in a row, surely it would hit black next time right? Apparently I was not the only one thinking this, because as I go to put down 50, there is a rush to the table, people putting everything they have on black. The little 8x3 inch black square was packed full of $5 $25 $100 dollar chips, and spirits were high as everyone was confident that black was sure to hit. She flicks the ball and gives the wheel a spin... a bit too hard... the ball was bouncing around on the wheel for something like 17 years and finally it tinkers to a hault. On red. The dejected gamblers sulk away, having put everything on the table. I however, am determined to get my $50 back. $100 more on black. Again she spins that wheel just a little too fast and just after my 60th birthday, the ball rests. On red. The rest of the tenacious who were smart enough to keep some of their bankroll in their pocket slink into the forest of slot machines. I am not losing my money. $200 on black. Red has now hit 9 times in a row. It can't hit 10 can it? Is that even possible? After the pit boss tells her to slow down the wheel, she flicks the ball into motion, and as it orbits the wheel, I realize it is possible, that ball does not know where it landed last time, I just put $200 on a 49% chance of winning. Again the ball rests. Of the original ambitious group, I alone remain, and along with a few newcomers, we watch as the wheel spins around, bringing that ivory little ball into view, resting in a bed of black. With a smile I took my 400 and walked.

A friend who was watching the roulette game play out told me I have great affects. That might be the best compliment I have ever received, she is a psychologist. I do not want to talk too much about gambling, but it is kind of the main reason for going to Vegas, the main reason Vegas exists really, so I have just a little more to say. I tried my luck at the poker table a few more times, probably spending another 4 hours or so playing, and in my entire time at the table i still saw nothing better than 2 pair. I was able to bluff my way into a profit once and I walked away even after about an hour of play another time, and I dropped 100 one night when everyone else was dancing at a club, though I don't consider that a loss really, I think it is worth $100 to get out of dancing. After such terrible luck, I swore off poker for a couple days and it wasnt until the last day that I sat back down at the table. I saw off Chris and Zack to their plane at 1 pm and had 12 hours till mine left, so I thought I would take another crack at the poker table. I sat at the Flamingo and play was going pretty well, I even hit better than two pair! Twice! It was great! until one hand... I was up about $50 to $250 and had A 10 to give me top pair, top kicker on a 10 7 4 flop. This old guy who had been trying to bully me around all night raised the flop 15, I doubled his raise, and he went all in on top of me, he had me covered so it put me in for around $230. After little deliberation I called, the guy showed his bluff, flipping KQ, and I was comfortable with my 10s. Flop came a K, I am now beat. River blanked and there goes my money. And just to add insult to the gross display of luck, the dealer pushed all the chips my way, thinking somehow that I had a pair of aces, so I got a good look at what was rightfully mine before her evil mistake was pointed out by everyone at the table. I was playing some good poker, and I was not ready to call it quits, so I put another 200 down at the table. I immediately started rakeing in the pots. There was an obnoxious lady at the table who would not stop giving me her money. It was all little 30, 40 dollar pots, but it was adding up, and her hatred for me culminated in one hand where her pocket Qs met my pocket Ks and I took her for all she was worth. It wasnt luck, she was just a bad poker player and I was on my game, the board was all low- 73427, she could have easily gotten away from pocket queens there, and I garnered a call there with the loose play I had been displaying. I sat for about an hour and a half with my second $200 and turned it into $700 before standing up, finally a triumph at the poker table, and 2 hours before I had to go to the airport. I needed that.

So all in all my vegas gambling experience went quite well, and my Vegas experience otherwise was even better. The Paris hotel we stayed in was wonderful and thanks to a little schmoozing, which Chris picked up while living in Vegas for a month, we got a nice room with a great view, overlooking the pool and the Bellagio fountain. It was a great place to crash after a long day at the tables or in the sun, and to wake up in the morning and head down to the huge pool we were overlooking. I would reccommend the Paris, but of course the only comparison I have is the Imperial Palace, which is well known to be one of the lowest quality hotels on the strip. We of course had our voyage downtown with a couple we met at the pool, that was a good time. Downtown seems like the most Vegasy part of Vegas to me, it is the epitome of the bright lights and over the top everything that makes Vegas what it is. And on my last day I headed over to the Rio to check out the WSOP main event, maybe that is what gave me inspiration for my successful run at the poker table later that day. It was cool to watch the best in the business do their thing, but I only recognized a single face in the crowd, though one of those people will soon be the recipient of the most prestigious title in the poker world.

And now I am back in the burgh, staying at Jon's for the next couple days and then flying back out to Philly just in time to start moving stuff from Jersey over to PA northeast of Philly. It will feel good to live in PA again. Even if it is Philadelphia.

Jersey June

The past few weeks I have really been trying to find the finer points of the state of New Jersey and Philadelpha. Can't go wrong with a trip to the beach right? Or shore as they call it around here, which I think is because a beach implies sand, and the Jersey shore seems to be lined with dirt rather than sand, so "beach" might be inappropriate. My home for the rest of the last year has been, well:And now the closest I get is:
But hey, its better than nothing. Other than a trip to the shore, Kari and I also went to a jazz concert at the winery we visited a couple weeks ago, about 300 people showed up, and let me tell you, an odd crowd comes out of the woodwork in Jersey for a jazz concert. We were fortunate enough to put our lawn chairs next to a man who seemed to be posing for a photoshoot during the concert, I took it upon myself to capture a few of the good ones. With my new Nikon P6000 by the way!
So we enjoyed the jazz and wine, munching on some grub we got at a place called The Grilled Cheese and Crab Cake Co. We got... a grilled cheese and a crab cake, both delish, and of course went to visit our friend Giorgio at his restaurant. It was a good day in the dirty Jers.

Another adventure worth noting was our trip to the Mutter Museum. It is run by the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and used to be open only to teachers and students for educational purposes. It houses all kinds of specimens exhibiting every medical anomaly you would ever wish to know existed. With siamese twin fetuses preserved in jars, well over 100 human skulls with holes eaten away by syphilis or chopped with an ax, tape worms, tumors, skeltons, every body part preserved in a jar, books bound in human leather, the famous "Soap Lady", well it was enough to make your skin crawl for days, and enough to satisfy even the most disturbed minds.

So, I have been having my fun, and now it is time for even more. With the 4th of July approaching, this is the time of year that my pyromaniacle disposition is most acceptable. It is liberating. I am headed back to Pittsburgh today to spend the 4th and on the 8th I will be flying out to Vegas with my friends Zack and Jon to meet up with our friend Chris who will have been out there for 41 Days and 40 Nights. And itisnow time to go pack andmake important decisions like whether I am going to bring my Heeleys or not, check back later for updates on how much money I have won.

Ice Cream, Wine, Jazz, Poker. Life Is Good.

The month started off with a wedding, A fairly standard affair, outdoor, had the ceremony in the same spot as the reception, which is a great idea, had a splendid time with the family, and the occasion was ended properly with a supremely trashed automobile for the new bride and groom. The culprits are still at large.

June 11th brought something amazing. The Scooper Bowl. It is an ice cream festival held in Boston, and Kari, the wonderful person she is, took me there as a late birthday present. Ice cream. Everywhere. There were 9 vendors touting about 50 flavors of ice cream, each had 3 out at a time in little cups, I guessed them to be around 4 ounces. Haagen, Ben, Jerry, Breyer, Robbin! They were all there! And they were all showcasing their finest flavors. Maine Lobster Tracks, delicious, nothing to do with lobster. Zesty Lemon Sorbet, I heard from multiple people walking away from the stand "Wow! that really is zesty!". And it was. Rock n' Pop swirl! It popped in your mouth! Bailey's Irish Cream, tasted like the real deal, it seemed illegal they were giving it to kids. But the best flavor, without question, Ben and Jerry's Oatmeal Cookie Chunk. They held a contest for the best flavor, and after all the votes, on all 50 flavors, Oatmeal Cookie Chunk won with a full 25% of the vote. It is that good. I ended up eating 25 cups of ice cream, that was one of each flavor that each stand had up (skipping a couple boring repeats like chocolate), and at 4 oz. a cup, thats almost a full gallon of ice cream. That is a lot of ice cream. Enough to make even the most lactosetolerant person become intolerant... hah, dang that was good though. The trip also introduced me to New England for the first time, with the drive up to Boston, a stop in Providence, and a day walking around Boston, I was really impressed. Boston is a beautiful city, not too big, clean as can be, good food, I give it an A. Makes me appreciate some things about Pittsburgh, spending so much time in other big citys, like in Pittsburgh there is not an obsession with tourism being beaten into your head around every corner, you dont have to pay $50 to park for a day, you can find comfortable little places to stop that arent one of a thousand exactly like it in the world. But it was a great city, it really was. Plus, there is ice cream everywhere.

Back in Jersey, we were looking for something to do, and it may surprise you, but South Jersey is a certified wine region, there are lots of vineyards in the area. We went and tasted wine, schmoozing with the other clientele, ended up chatting with the chief of police (there for his monthly "inspection"), his father, and a local italian restaurant owner. I will say at this point, it is great to go out with two young attractive ladies, Kari and her friend, you seem to get lots of free stuff from guys. The Italian restaurant owner, Giorgio, invited us to his place, and when we showed up he took a seat with us, gave us an appetizer and a bottle of merlot from the local vineyard, then a "real bottle of wine" from his home town in Italy, then one of the cooks came out and gave us a bottle of his home made wine. After giving us dessert and shots of espresso and sambuca at the end of the meal, I went over to say by goodbye and thanks and got sucked into conversation with he and a friend at the bar. We ended up staying another few hours at the bar chatting with Giorgio and his friends. We had a good time, and I feel like I must reccommend, not only because of the hospitality but because the food was incredible, that you must go there if you are ever in the unfortunate predicament of being in South Jersey, it will be a cherry on your hot sludge sunday.

Like I said before, I caught the New York Fever when Kari's parents took us last month, so I was back last weekend to see Jamie Cullum play Carnegie Hall. We bought a $1 bus ticket that got us in at 9 from philly, and spent the day walking around the city, had lunch at S'MAC which only serves variations of mac n cheese, toured the Metropolitan Museum of art, walked through Central Park, took some busses, took the subway, and after walking something like 10 miles we took our seats in Carnegie Hall to watch the jazz genious unfold on stage. When we got to our seat, we were in the second to last row in the highest balcony in the whole theatre, so we... upgraded, a fairly simple process, you just scan out some empty seat and look like you know where you are going, nobody asks questions. We ended up right down on the rail on the third balcony, pretty close to the action. The show was incredible, with a modern jazz opener that had a great techno twist, and Jamie took the stage with a storm with his piano acrobats, some wicked improv, he took the stand up bass, trumpet and the drummer with a snare out into the audience and set up a little jam session in the middle of the aisle, just flowin for 10 minutes or so, it was groovy. Truely an amazing concert, the only bad part was at the end, the audience gave him a screaming loud standing ovation for something like 10 minutes after he left the stage and he didnt come back out for another song. After I got home I looked on his twitter and he apologized for not coming back out, saying that they would absolutely not let him. Stupid. Still. Awesome.

I am just starting to come off my high from the concert and just getting pumped for my trip to Vegas in a couple weeks, the excitement just keeps comin. Other than that, I signed up for a soccer tournament in July and I am trying to get myself in suitable shape to step onto a soccer field, I put an add trying to sell myself on craigslist, that hasnt panned out, so I sit around a lot, doing things like writing blog posts, looking for what might be a real job sometime in the distant future, creating sweet buisiness cards! check these bad boys out! I printed a few out and dang they are sweet. If you want me to make one for you I will, you can even pick your card of choice, what else do I have to do?

The Evolutionary Explanation for Altruism

In a previous blog post I addressed the topic of altruism and devised a hypothetical mechanism for its evolution through Darwinian theory. The subject of evolution and more specifically the philosophy of altruism and how it came to be really intrigues me, as is evident from that post. Mark sent me a couple links to articles that address the issue and I was amazed by how similar the arguments presented were to my own, particularly in the first article "An Evolutionary Explanation for Altruism". They talk about insects primarily and get into the necessity for a complex social structure, taking a similar path to their conclusion. The second article talks about this transition to a society that interacts on a level that allows the benefits of altruism to be seen, which is a potentially problematic phenomena, and I think he tackles it with grace. The third article builds further on this idea, focusing on the human race and offering a real life scenario for the theory to play out.

My previous post on the matter

1. An Evolutionary Explanation for Altruism

2. Competition, Loss of Selfishness Mark Shift to Supersociety

3. Altruism's Bloody Roots

Let me know what you think!

They call me the rambler

It seems that evolution would have led to a population that was predominantly female. If there were a population of 10 humans, 5 female, 5 male, then only 5 offspring could be produced in any single reproductive cycle, but if it were, say, 9 women and me, then there would be 9 offspring every reproductive cycle, and if those progeny were again 90% female, the cycle would continue with reproduction at a much greater rate. Now these days, with over population, such an increase in the growth of population would be undesirable, but i'm talkin back in the days of nomadic tribes and whatnot. And this does happen in a lot of populations, a greater ratio of females to males, for the aforementioned reasons of the increased reproductive efficiency, however, humans do not experience this, leading to the conclusion that males are essential in the fitness of the species. It is easy to see why this might be in said nomadic tribal days, what with the males hunting and gathering, it was a full time job that a group of 9 pregnant females and me would not be able to fulfill. Things have changed though, and females are able to raise children on their own, all they need from a male is some... "seed". I don't think that the day is far away that we will be able to control the sex of our children, and when that day comes, I feel this could be the end of a paternal era. I am not necessarily saying this is a bad thing though, in a world where there are 9 females for every male, well, I think a lot of problems would be solved. I don't really know, but it seems like 99% of sex crimes are committed by males, but in such a world, with such ratios, I think that just about any guy could find someone. Wars would change drastically, with countries not willing to sacrifice their males, the lines would be saturated with women, and the squabbles would be over totally different things, like which country gets to have the pink flag with a purple heart on it and a little kitten in the middle of the heart, or they would just start whining about random stuff that happened years ago once a month for no reason. With such a high density of estrogen operating together on a day to day basis, entire continents would experience the sorority house effect, you know what I am talking about, leading to mass chaos once a month, maybe it would just be a national holiday, maybe it would unite the countries and serve as a platform for world peace. Males would be reduced to nothing, like the little spiders that mate and then get eaten by the female, but the human race would go on without us.

I am not sure what that was all about, I am currently in the car on my way to my cousins wedding, I just started writing, but really guys, now that I think about it, just keep that in the back of your mind. So, I took up a new hobby a couple years ago, it is a rare one, but not unheard of. I try to actually dry my hands in the air dryers in bathrooms. It is a time consuming hobby, but it has its rewards. While spending time at the dryer, you get to read the clever bits of wisdom that people leave etched into the metal. Place hands on butt. Rub vigorously. Tops all. They get all that just by erasing letters! how clever! Or my personal favorite. Push button. Get bacon. It is because the red wavy lines in the picture coming out of the dryer look like bacon. And then sometimes, you get to experience exciting advances in hand dryer technology. If you find yourself near the MOMA in New York, it is worth a stop in to use their hand dryers. The Dyson Air Blade. Instead of a leisurely 15 or 20 minute zephyr that you get at a normal hand dryer, it is an exhilarating 10 second gale force blast, wicking the moisture away from your hands.

In other news, I read this morning that you are supposed to use "at least an inch long strip" of toothpaste when brushing your teeth, I read it on the tube of my Crest Pro-Health toothpaste. What happened to "use a pea sized amount", that is what it always used to be. I think the toothpaste people are just trying to get a little more turnover in their product, with an "inch long strip" being an estimated 4 times the volume of "a pea sized amount". Crafty. So, they say to contact a doctor if you ingest more that the amount used for brushing, but the amount is now significantly more, so the amount used for brushing is more than the old amount used for brushing, so I foresee lots of accidents with people using the "pea sized" toothpaste, but using an inch long strip of it, and then if they swallow some, they wont be worried because it is the amount used for brushing, but really it is 4 times the amount used for brushing, so they will end up dying.

New York

Although I have lived my entire life in the eastern US, I have never traveled to our nations capital, New York City. I know, right? I felt so ignorant, I never got to see the Empire State Building where the president lives, the washington monument proudly holding up the torch as he crosses the Delaware, the eiffel tower, which is the tallest building in the world! All of this was practically right in my back yard and I never experienced it. Until now.

Turns out there was a lot of disappointment on the trip. George Washington looks an awful lot like a girl, turns out the president moved to washington somewhere, probably seattle, and the eiffel tower... well it looks like someone played a game of Jenga with it. No but really, I was shocked by the condition of ground zero at the WTC, there is still substantial structure from the foundation of the towers that is still standing, they block off any view of the site as best as they can, maybe because they dont want people to witness the lack of progress, it was really rather disheartening. I thought we would get the rebuilding underway as fast as possible, just to show we can bounce back, show our tenacity, our strength... but... apparently not.

Okay, well other than that, my trip to New York was pretty darn awesome. I went with Kari and her parents, who were attending a furniture convention in Manhattan, because that is her dad's business, and we were invited along, how could I pass up a furniture convention?? I know you are thinking that sounds supremely boring, but it was actually really interesting. Every booth had their one big idea, their niche in the market, some of which were... a little over the top, but some of them were really cool. I am not sure that I would be able to furnish a house with satisfaction out of the entire thousands of pieces in there, but it was pretty cool to see. Some of my favorites were a chair that was like a weeble wobble, you could swing around on it, windows that had a crystal layer inside that would be completely opaque until you ran an electric current through them, then they were crystal clear, and a chair that had arm rests that kind of went backwards behind the back, so you leaned back and out your elbows on them, kind of forcing you into a reclined position that just made you feel cool. Plus, in addition to all this excitement, we also got to visit the other convention going on at the time, and for those of you who are thinking that the furniture convention sounds like the epitome of bore, I give you: the stationary convention. Stationary. Like paper. 1000 exhibits of paper. Kari and I walked through 5 different stands and that was more birthday cards and frilly paper than anyone should ever have any interest in seeing.

But really the convention was just a small part of the trip, we did our touristy rounds. Mr. Evans had a few places he wanted to go, from previous trips to the city or advice from friends, and we spent one evening cruising the city finding these places, with a little help from Goog411. The trip getting there were usually as interesting as the destination itself, with so much to see, even just people watching would be enough to stay occupied. My favorite stop was a little bar called McSorley's that had been open for 155 years. They brew their own beer, light and dark, and thats all you can get, and thats all they need. The place was packed, we waited in a line to get in, and there was only scrunched standing room once we finally did get in. The beer was good, not great, the best part about it was the atmosphere, when you walk in, guys walking around with 6 mugs in each hand, pushing their way through the crowds, you have to fight your way to the bar, a little scared that you will order wrong and get thrown out like the soup nazi, well when you get your beer, you enjoy it. And we did. We also found a noodle place called Momofuku that was recommended and looked pretty good, but like the rest of the city... way too crowded. We went to Madame Tussaud's wax museum, which I was not expecting much out of, the idea of seeing a likeness of J-lo and george clooney was kind of lost on me, my disinterest was made apparent when, in the first big room of wax celebs, I was leaning against a counter, zoning out like I have been known to do sometimes, and a couple guys stopped to look at me, then waved their hands in my face to see if I was real, haha, I tried to keep in motion after that. Further into the museum they displayed historic figures, like Louis Armstrong, Napoleon Bonaparte, George Washington, that was pretty cool to see, also the skyscraper that is the 7'6" Yao Ming, the rather unimposing 6'4" Michael Jordan, the tiny little jockey man Bill Shoemaker things like that were interesting, plus at the end I bought a little bag that looks exactly like a piece of pizza for a friend (Stofko, you know its you), so it was a good stop. We went to see the Blue Man Group, which was an impressive show, and really funny. And Kari and I also went to a comedy show in Times Square to escape the rain that decided to spoil our explorations. A high school prom party went to the show also, and therefore became the brunt of most of the jokes for the evening, it was a good time.
So, all in all New York was an amazing place, Mr. and Mrs. Evans, thank you for that experience. That is a whole lot of city, and I can't wait to get back there to experience more of it, I actually just bought tickets to see Jamie Cullum play Carnegie Hall on June 20th, I guess I caught the NYC fever.

Home

I have been spending the last few weeks in Philadelphia at Kari and Brooke's apartment, and have just been sitting around enjoying life, far too busy doing nothing to do anything, like updating the brog. I was not sure how I felt about getting back into the world, out of the excitement of life on the boat, I didnt know whether I would be changed somehow, unsatisfied, unstimulated by everyday life back how it used to be. I am the type of person who has always needed a bit more to keep my brain satiated, and I have been dealing with it my whole life, so sure, sitting in an apartment all day isnt quite as exciting as sailing the Bahamas, but I am back in America, a land practically made for ADD, and I am stumbling and video gaming my way through it.
As I wrote about before, I cooked up a feast for my temporary roommates a few days after I got there. After a $100 trip to Wegman's, which is a pretty awesome grocery store, I had all I needed to create my masterpiece, which I thought up while sailing one day, using my salt water spotted notes to guide me. The word of the night was sushi, and if you know the people I was cooking for, you would say I am crazy, they will never eat sushi, but just read on. I bought 2 nice cuts of strip steak, some nice colorful peppers, onions, tortillas, and of course some sushi rice. These were the main ingredients in my steak sushi roll. Instead of nori (seaweed) I used the tortilla shell, layed in the steak and veggies, and once rolled and cut the results were delicious and a good looking dish. The next dish was in the same vane, a sushi roll made with grilled chicken and steamed broccoli, with a 4 cheese sauce for dipping. I also made a steak sauce like the white sauce you always see in Japanese steak houses, and it was pretty delicious with the steak roll. I got some tuna and salmon as well and made some more traditional rolls, my favorite of which was the roll I made last with all the leftovers, consisting of salmon, tuna, red peppers, cucumbers, and avocado, though the others I made which were different combinations of the aforementioned ingredients were all pretty delicious. I am still planning on doing a write up at some point about cooking, maybe I will get into specifics there if anyone is interested.
So I have all this stuff. My stuff. The stuff I own. All of it. Most of it is in Indiana at my parents house right now, some of it scattered around at various houses of family/friends, and all of it is right where it belongs. I think I heard the definition of home as “a place to put your stuff”, which is really a joke, but I think there is some truth to it, which I suppose also defines me as “homeless”. Now that does not mean that I wouldn't have a home if I wanted one, because I know there are many places I could go to put my stuff, but that takes such a commitment to a single place, a commitment that I am really not able to make. Over the next year I will be living in California, Indiana, Pittsburgh, and New Jersey, which means that I will be living out of a suitcase again for another year, and really I am ok with that, but I have stuff somewhere, stuff that is just sitting there, and I feel like it should be being used... but that requires a home. So, I am not going to have a home for a while, and my stuff will have to deal with it.

Land Ho!

Sandpiper and her crew have made it back to port in one piece, well, a few scratches and dents (on the crew not the boat) but we made it, and dang it feels good. After Charleston we kicked it into high gear, doing at least 50 miles every day, passing through the South Carolina swamps, the fried seafood capitol of the US- Calabash, NC, the war zone that is Camp Lejeune, a night in bustling Wrightsville Beach, a final stop in the quaint little town of Swansbro, and then a magnificent sail on our last day, doing a good 7-8 knots down the Neuse River in the 25 mph winds, and now it just a matter of cleaning out the boat and getting out of here.
The Carolinas on the ICW really are beautiful, with the marshes, the gnarly trees covered in spanish moss.
We have also been seeing lots of dolphin, and of course the plethora of water fowl that lines the channel. Going through Camp Lejeune we saw in the distance a group of somethings spraying up big jets of water and couldnt figure out what was going on, until they went right past us, a group of 15 or so amphibious tank looking things, each of them spraying up 2 huge jets of water, with 3 camo clad folk poking their heads out of the hatches. Mark was of course taking pictures, and as one of the tanks passed by, one of the soldiers took out his little digital camera and started taking pictures of us too as we passed. A little further down the channel we saw a huge Splash Mountain of a spray up ahead and realized it was coming from the tanks charging into the water at 30 mph from a dirt road leading into the channel. It was pretty cool. We made the entire trip home on the ICW without a single grounding, a task which many say is impossible, though it is much easier when you are following someone with a draft 6 inches more than yours. Brian went aground every day for 5 days straight, and we just scooted by him every time.
So now we are back on land, a little more cleaning, maybe some time to get reacquainted with the real world, and I will be ready to go. Kari is coming down on Thursday to get me and I will be spending some time in Philly as I adjust to life on land again. I am pretty excited to cook in a real kitchen again, I have been dreaming up some dishes I am going to cook once I get the chance. I think I might write up something about cooking on the boat, maybe post a few of my more popular recipes. Macaroni stuffing casserole, mango salsa snapper, spam sauerkraut stew, lime in the coconut crusted grouper, maybe I will write a boat cook book.

Scootin Along

We are really making some headway on the way north, we hopped out for a 24 hour leg on the ocean from Fernandina Beach, FL to Charleston, SC, skipping Georgia entirely in the process. The ICW winds so much through Georgia, we more than halved the distance traveled by going out, and made better speed while doing it, so we are making great time. We visited Cumberland Island, which used to be the getaway spot for the Carnegie family, there remains the skeleton of the mansion they built, as well as all the servants quarters, a graveyard full of Carnegies who died in Pittsburgh, and a population of wild horses still flourishes on the island, it is a beautiful island with expanses of forest, salt marshes, and a beach along the whole eastern side, it was easy to see why they chose it. The jaunt outside was a little crappy just cause we didnt get much real sailing in, with the wind just off our bow we were close hauled the whole time and didnt get much push out of it, but it wasnt so bad, and it got us some distance. The coolest part about the sail was the dolphins that played in our bow wave a couple times, there were 10 or so and they stuck with us for 15 minutes on two seperate occasions, it is amazing to see them flitting around under the boat, obviously doing it just for the fun of it. They will even roll on their side sometimes right on the surface and look up at you, and both times they stayed with us until I left the bow to check on the navigation, I went back up and they were gone, I really think they are interested to see us up there. Once we got into Charleston we met up with our friends from More Cowbell and had a great time exploring the city with them, it is a beautiful old city. The guys split up with the girls at one point and we went to a cigar and wine shop while they went shopping, I sat down and played some chess with Dave, a nice maduro in one hand and a glass of wine in front of me, I was livin large, it was great, and then the girls came back before I finished the cigar and I have not heard the end of it since, I dont think Erin will ever talk to me again. Sorry Erin.
We will probably be in New Bern around the 7th of May or so, but its hard to speculate, we never really know what we are doing. Once we get back we will be doing a little work on the boat, probably on the house, and then heading out into the world, who knows where. I will get some pictures up soon.

Made it

Sandpiper has returned. After leaving Great Sale Cay at 9 am on Sunday, we arrived in Cape Canaveral around 9 am on Monday. The crossing was great, we couldnt have asked for better, we sailed for the majority of the trip, the winds were great, the seas were as calm as could be expected in the middle of the ocean. Mark wasnt feeling well so I took the majority of the watch and I enjoyed every minute of it, I had Sandpiper wing and wing for a couple hours when we first got in the stream, and had her sitting around 9 knots for a good while with the current behind us and a steady 15 knot wind. It was a pretty uneventful crossing, which left a lot of time for my mind to wander, Alan told me he misses my random thoughts, so this is a brief view into what goes on when my mind was idle sitting at the helm.
I remember once Alan was in 4th grade, and I was making fun of him for not knowing what some word meant, and when I did I said something about his vocabulary being so small, and he didnt know what vocabulary meant. I thought that was pretty ironic.
Of all the neighboring letters in the alphabet, I think G and F would get along the worst, B and C are the cool kids, not like the jerk ones, but the ones that all the other letters look up to and wish they could be like. M and L are totally hooking up.
I posted a video a while ago of a ridiculous Saturday Night Live song called I'm on a Boat (again dont click if you are offended by bad music and/or language), I couldnt get it out of my head while we were sailing so I started thinking up a new version about Sandpiper's return to the US, and it started getting pretty good, so I thought I would share it here. It doesn't quite fit the song perfectly, but I thought it was worth a share, we are thinking about recording it, we need a stand in for T-Pain though.

Woah, a boat ride for three. Now who should I take?
Mark.
and.... Grandad
"Cool"

This is it, get the sails ready
It's about to go down
Everybody in the place get up on deck
But dont stub your cleat catchin toes.
We sailin this, lets go.

Im on a boat, on a sail boat
Everybody look at me cause I'm sailin on a boat.
I'm on a boat, on a sail boat
Take a good hard look at my mother's father's boat.

I'm on a boat with my brother, take a look at me
Straight travlin the Bahamas as slow as can be
We bustin five knots on full sail, it aint no joke
You can't stop me and my brother, cause we're on a boat

I'm tyin bowlines, and hitches on cleats
I'm eatin oatmeal and spam be cause its so cheap
But I eat in high style, when I spear a fish
Too bad the ciguatera makes my hands and feet itch.

I'm goin back to the burgh, lookin for jobs n'at
And errbodys sayin "ya, good luck with that"
But I got my college degree
And that will come in handy
When im workin at McDees
Makin quarter pounders with cheese

I'm on a boat and
It's goin slow and
Im wrapped up in my grandmother's homemade afghan
Ya my sails aren't fast
Thats ok with me
Give you time to work on that
US economy.

Look at me I'm on a boat with my brother,
A 36 sloop with a red sail cover,
Hey, there goes a whale, and there goes another,
When the wind opposes the current, the sea gets rougher.

Hey ma if you could see me now
I call the right side the starboard and the front the bow
Gonna sail this boat to New Bern somehow,
If we can do that, anything is possible.

Ya, I never thought I would be on a boat,
And I really dont mean to gloat,
But the Bahamas sure were sweet.
No, I never thought I'd see the day,
With the east coast comin my way
Believe me when I say, that days a good day.

I'm on a boat, on a sail boat
Take a good hard look at my mother's father's boat.
I'm on a boat, on a sail boat
Take a good hard look at my mother's father's boat.

I hope I have some big names in the music industry in my expansive reader base, I 'm thinkin this could get pretty big. I wrote some of that after being up for a long time on the crossing, you may be able to guess which ones, hah.

So that is the kind of stuff I think about when my mind is free to wander, and I could go on for ages longer if I listed all the crap that goes through my head. So other than zoning out, I mostly just enjoyed the ocean and the sky around me. On the way out of the islands, a couple porpoise were playing on our bow, doing flips and zig zaggin around on our bow wave, it was pretty awesome, they stuck around for a good 15 minutes. And I am relatively certian that I almost witnessed the end of the world in the middle of the night. I was watching the night sky, which is absolutely spectacular when you are in the middle of the ocean, and watching the satelites go by, the occasional shooting star. And then I saw a particularly bright shooting star, and it got brighter, and brighter, and then grew to an intense bright white streak and exploded with a burst of light that filled up the night sky like a supercharged bolt of lightening, it was such an impressive sight that I stood up and gawked, noticing that there was a white smokey streak left in the sky where it had been. It was a little scary. But we made it, cleared customs, and are now chilling out enjoying the American soil with a trip to the Kennedy Space Center and Wal Mart to renew our pride in our nation. It should just be 3 weeks or so now till we are back in New Bern, feel free to give me a call any time, its good to be back and I would love to chat.

Sandpiper going wing and wing into her last Bahamian sunset

Our escort out of the islands.

The sun sets on the Bahamas...

And rises on the United States.

Back in the US?

Well dont I feel dumb, I am now in the northern cays of the Abacos, and again, I thought I was going to get a chance to post on here before we left Green Turtle Cay, but their entire internet was down and a little after we left the entire island lost power, alas, that is how it goes in the Bahamas. So I guess we are going to have to do the crossing by ourselves since I didnt get that last post out in time, I am sure a lot of you are disappointed you missed that opportunity...  Anyway, we are sitting in Angelfish Point right now to wait out a front, and it just passed right over us. The lightening was amazing, that was one thing that I really missed down here, we never had any thunderstorms since I got down here, and tonight was the first lightening I had seen in months and it sure came in strong, when I was out watching there was not a single moment for the entire time that the sky was not lit up somewhere by a lightening strike. Sitting in a little secluded spot with a 50 foot metal pole just asking to be hit is a little disconcerting, but the storm was pretty incredible. I take back what I said about the Abacos, I really just wanted to say "Abacos shmabacos" they really were never bad, and they only got better as we went along. Hopetown and Man-O-War were especially nice.
    So, by the time I get this on my blog I will probably be back in the US, how exciting is that? Feel free to give me a call, right now, because I am in the United States of America and would be thrilled to talk to you! Ok, I am not really. Not right now. But it feels good to say it, and when you read this I will be... so... I guess I can say that. Allright, we head out to Great Sale in the morning, the last stop in our journey home!

It's Dive O'clock Somewhere

  Well, I thought I was sill going to be in Man-O-War Cay for the 10th and I would be able to post my last entry before we left, but we decided to head out to Hopetown in the morning. The trip was only about 5 miles, but it was directly upwind, and with such a short sail and great weather, Mark and I decided to tack our way upwind under only sail. We about doubled the time and distance of the trip, but it was satisfying, we sailed right up onto our anchor without running the motor at all. Once in Hopetown we did a little exploring, it is a typical Abacos town, with brightly colored houses, a beautiful pink sandy beach on the ocean side, little shops on every corner. A unique aspect of the town was the lighthouse which it operates. It is a 100 year old lighthouse, and it still runs the way it did the day it was built.We asked the keeper if we could come at dusk to help (read: hinder) him when he lights it, and he was glad to have us. So that made 4 little girls and 7 adults, everyone from Sandpiper, Gottalife, Bird, and Casa Mare, crowded into the little light room at the top of the lighthouse. The light is powered by kerosene and can be seen from 17 miles away, I was expecting some grand torchy gizmo that would impress and amaze me, but when we got up there... it was just a... kerosene lamp, just like a coleman lantern, a little wire mesh bubble where the gas burns, which amazed and impressed me in the opposite fashion that I was hoping for. The light is concentrated by Freznel lenses, made by Freznel himself I believe, and there were 5 sections, like gigantic magnifying glasses, on a track that goes around the light. The keeper lit the kerosene, and we then took turns turning the handle that lifts a 1200 lb weight, which turns the lenses as it lowers. It was pretty amazing to see, and then to go back to the boat and watch the beams of light that we just helped create.
    The 10th of April was also my deathday, and in honor of that, I bought everyone ice cream cones and made a delightful hogfish dinner from the fish I caught the day before, and a strawberry cake with fudge icing. It was a good deathday. Geneva informed me that one of the ghosts in Harry Potter also celebrates his death day, so I think that is enough to legitimize its celebration.
    We are now in Green Turtle Cay, and we are mere days away from making the crossing to the states. We are going to be hopping from Great Sail to Cape Canaveral, it will be somewhere around a 36 hour sail, and with just Mark and I on board it wont exactly be fun, we will handle it just fine, just not fun. So... if you want to fly to the Bahamas for a thrilling sailing experience, and you know how to read a compass, you are welcome on Sandpiper, just be here by Thursday, we will have you back in the states (you too can feel cool by calling it "the states" while you are here) by Sunday. The closer we get, the more excited I am to get home, just the fact that I will be able to talk on my cell phones is enough. We are currently waiting for a little front to blow through, and after that we have a small window on Thursday, hopefully big enough, though we might have to wait till Sunday, but regardless, we will be back soon, and after that we will be making pretty god time on the way home. On the way down we were traveling in the winter so the days were shorter, now the days are getting longer and we have more travel time, which is all that really limits us when we are going up the ICW. We will also hopefully be making some hops on the outside, the Gulf stream goes north, so we can go out and ride that to get over some of the bad spots in the ICW, like the bridge filled Florida and the endless winding in Georgia. We should be back in a month or so from our start on the ICW, so sometime mid to late May, depending on when we get our weather window.
    I will be getting around the country quite a bit when we get back, and I am thinking about buying a car, though I have not put much thought into it yet, but if anyone has a car they are thinking about selling, or knows anyone who is, or just has some general advice about buying a car these days, you should let me know. I dont know if the crap going on with GM will lead to some good deals or if it would be bad to buy from them? Maybe I will just hitchhike to get around. Anyone going to be in the North Carolina area around the middle of May? Hah, if so, maybe I will catch a ride with you wherever you are going.

Abacos Shmabacos

    We have made our way up to the Abacos Islands, our final destination before we make the crossing back to the US. We have been to a few spots through the islands, and it is all beautiful, but we have heard so many good things about it and I have to say, I am disappointed. The Exumas exemplified what I was expecting in the Bahamas very closely, and after that, the Abacos are a little disappointing. It is very built up here, this is a popular destination for yachts to come, being so close to the US. Don't get me wrong, the islands are beautiful, but we have not yet found a place to go get lost in the wilderness without the invasion of civilization. A good example of this fact is that I am sitting out anchored in the middle of a bay off of Man-O-War Cay, and I get a random wi fi signal that I can connect to. This isnt all bad though, we just experienced the world famous cinnamon rolls in Treasure Cay, we had them for breakfast 2 days in a row, and today we went into town after dinner for an ice cream dessert, so civilization has its plusses.

    The diving here is beautiful, we had a great day when anchored at Royal Island and came back with a boat full of fish, notably 2 big hog fish and a tiger grouper. The hog fish are touted as some of the best tasting in the Bahamas, and it certainly was delicious. We even used its reputation to our advantage, scoring a shooter for the spear I found as a trade for a hogfish fillet, and someone else let us borrow a spear, they called us the next day saying the lionfish and hogfish we gave them was the best fish they have had yet in the Bahamas. But dont tell anyone, it is illegal to buy sell or trade goods or services in the Bahamas without paying proper duties, we have heard that about 1000 times. One bad thing about the reefs being so full of life is that the prolific life brings prolific predators. At the reefs we dove today, I had to abandon a grouper I shot and was trying to pry out of his hole because a shark came snooping, and later a couple baracuda chasing after me turned into 6, then 8, then 14, then 17 barracuda faces  looking in at  me from all directions, it was pretty intimidating, and when I gave up on the hunting because of them and headed back to the boat, a big ol shark came moseying by as well. With just one day left until I make it to one entire year of being alive, I decided to play it safe and call it a day.

    Today is April 10th, on this day last year I got into a car accident that nearly took my life, or rather, very briefly did take my life, and here I am a year later living the good life in the Bahamas with nothing but a couple scars and a deeper appreciation for my friends and family to remind me of it. So I decided that I would call today my deathday, just a couple weeks after my birthday, and instead of getting things from people, today I would give to people, just because so many people helped me on this day last year, and hey, I got some money out of the whole deal, what better way to spend it. So, if you would like, come on down to the Bahamas and I will buy you a drink and make you a delicious hogfish dinner.

    Turns out we are going to be back in the states sooner than we thought, we are planning on crossing some time after the 15th of April, and will be back in New Bern a month after we cross, that is unless we just decide to hop on a plane as soon as we get to Florida and leave Sandpiper on a mooring somewhere. It is crazy how many derelict boats you see, there are some in just about every mooring field we come across, I want to know what the deal is with that, when can you legally just take one of those boats? Now that we are sailing again, I have a lot of free time, I mean, not that I didnt have free time before, I guess my mind has a lot of free time now, the task of sitting behind the helm not being very mentally taxing, anyway, I have been using that time to do important things like memorize the phonetic alphabet, write sappy poetry, I am sure that my posts will involve a lot more random stuff, like I wrote a remake of the I'm on a Boat song, look for that later

William Trubridge

Sitting here in Nassau affords me the ability to do things like watch videos online. I met this guy William in Long Island, I actually went to the blue hole where he is diving with him and talked to him about it a little bit. He set the world record free dive, and he told me to watch his youtube video, and it is pretty cool, so here it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGy4BUg0_Fw.

3-30 Manana Iguana

We have made our way up to Allens Cay, one of the places I was most looking forward to visiting from the beginning. Before we got here we stopped in Norman's Cay, which used to be a stronghold for drug trafficking, but now is known mostly for the one bar on the island, Macduffs. It was less cool than I was hoping, but the diving around the Cay was great, Mark even got a grouper and 3 lobster, his first real kills of the trip. We are trying to keep our seafood intake down because of the ciguatera, but it is tough when that is your only source of meat aside from canned hamburger that looks like it is from 1846. Wherever we go, when people hear that we have ciguatera, we are instantly the topic of conversation, like at Macduffs, we got all kinds of questions and advice, like "dude, that sucks, you know you have that for life right? that sucks", and lots of helpful stuff like that. So we give most of the fish to Gottalife, its hard to resist a few bites when its sitting in front of you though, and we decided that lobster is ok to eat... and its pretty much gone anyway, might as well live it up right?
We are now at Allens, after a day of all motor and no sails due to an uncharacteristic day of no wind. The thing that makes Allens famous is that the islands are inhabited by iguanas, hundreds of iguanas. Tourists always feed them, so when you go to the beach they come pouring out of the woods, right up to you. It is a little intimidating, especially after hearing stories of people being bit and how aggressive they are. I cut up some Siggy meat to feed then and they were all about it, I started a few fights which is always fun, a hoard of iguanas would scurry and fight trying to get to the meat whenever I threw it. But when I ran out they were unhappy, I was sitting on the beach, having what I thought was a polite conversation with one of them when he decided that my toe might be a tasty treat and he gave me a little nibble. It was an interesting experience.

3-28 I've Got a Fever

Now on our way back up the Exuma chain, we get to go through all the spots where we just passed through a couple weeks ago, which means that everyone already has an impression of us, which is usually a good thing, but sometimes... its a bad thing, like in the particular anchorage in which we are currently anchored. There is a boat that stays on a mooring and coordinates the anchorage, and we came in and were about to anchor and she gets on and starts telling us we cant drop anchor there and starts telling us to go to the left of the anchorage, we insist on cardinal directions, and we finally get to a place she was ok with. Right after all this Priority calls us on the radio just to bust our chops about the transaction we just had, during which I called the lady "the mooring Nazi", and it turns out she was listening... and then a couple days later, completely unexpectedly, the park volunteer guy takes us back to the boat on his dinghy after a hard days work and a few room temperature beers, and he picks up who else but the mooring nazis, so I was profusely apologizing, it was just the kind of situation that leaves you never wanting to have to face the people again, and, well, here I am. I called them on my way in to make sure there were no hard feelings, jokingly... kind of...
I got in the water again for the first time since the day I got Siggy (thats what we named the monster amberjack that gave us ciguatera), and it was kind of crazy having that tingling sensation all over, but it wasnt bad, and I speared 3 decent snapper, so its all good. We also went to Rachael's bubble bath, which is a kind of pond in Compass Cay that is right by the shore but totally protected except one cut in the rock where the waves are funneled through and 15 foot surges come crashing into the pond, causing a wave to go through the whole thing and filling it with bubbles, its kind of like a wavepool with bubbles, it was pretty cool.
Ok, this post has been kind of boring, I will throw some sharks in to spice things up now. We went down to Pipe Cay again, which we touted as the best diving we had seen when we went before, and it held up to our standards, we came back with a bucket full of 6 fish, one of them a good 12 pound snapper Brian bagged. So we were all sitting around in the dinghys preparing to fillet our fish, not getting anything in the water, and sharks start circling, I have no idea how they knew, but they did. We started into the fish, cleaning fish goo off our hands in the water and things like that, and the sharks come up right underneath us, skimming the surface, there are 3 of them, a couple around 6 feet and one good 9 footer, lemon sharks I think. So I start taunting them, holding my hand in the water until the last second, so they surface right next to the dinghy and at first I wanted to touch one, which I did, but then I decided I want to grab one, and one of them came after my hand, and when it got close, I grabbed its dorsal fin and lifted it up out of the water and it started thrashing, it didnt like that very much, and then shot off when I let go, it was pretty awesome. My next goal was to hug one, but regrettably we were done with the fish and had to quit, so I never accomplished that goal.
We obviously see a lot of boats down here, so we try to find the best names that we can, and try to think of new ones. Sometimes a key part of a boat name is what you could name your dinghy, something that goes well with the boats name, that would sound good when you are calling it over the radio, for instance, our friends on More Cowbell named their dinghy Tink, so they would be on the radio saying "Tink Tink Tink, More Cowbell". Well the name I thought has the most potential for a spectacular dinghy name is a boat called "Thats What She Said", but I have not thought of a suitable dinghy name for it yet, so you all should try to think of a good dinghy name for a boat called Thats What She Said. I will send the winning entry an awesome Bahamian Prize, and if its good enough, maybe I will use the name for my first boat, which I guess I plan on doing some time, buying a boat, its an intriguing lifestyle, and plus when I get older there is a summer camp just for old people with boats.

Atlantis

I am sitting at a public computer at the Atlantis resort in Nassau, just thought I would put up a quick update. This place is absolutely gorgeous, every nook and cranny has some bit of extravagance built in. We spent yesterday in the waterpark, where they do things like take a crazy waterslide and then send it through a shark tank just to give it that touch of extraordinary, although you are going so fast you cant even see the sharks as you fly through. We spent the evening perusing the shops and restaurants around the resort, I splurged on some Ben and Jerrys, it was worth every penny.... $10 for an ice cream cone, ridiculous. I am staying in the Atlantis marina with Gottalife, and we are preparing for todays resort adventures, I will hopefully be back later with a couple posts I have written.

3-24 oldies

After actually being able to spend some time on the internet that kind of worked, I went to some of the links that my friends have sent me, and there is one that I must share with the masses, which was sent independently by two of my friends, and a warning, this is not for kids, or those offended by horrible (but hilarious) music and course language, I got less than a minute of it loaded, but I could already tell it makes a pretty good theme song, thanks Chris and Kaity. I'm on a boat. And if I see that crazy fish Brooke, I will let you know how it tastes.

This whole ciguatera thing is pretty insane. Whenever I get wet, it makes a crazy sensation, like burning, but not painful, its crazy, and I live on a boat, so I get wet a lot. Luckily we have avoided the whole gastrointestinal side of things, we are just getting a little of the neurological effects, which is pretty interesting, but I hope it goes away soon.

Now that we have started to go backwards, we are running into a lot of people who we didnt expect to see after we left Georgetown. We keep getting calls from people who hear us on the radio to say hey, and we will probably end up picking up a few in our convoy north... if we do ever end up going north. We are trying to convince my uncle, or rather my aunt really, to stay for the family island regatta in Georgetown, we heard that it is a really crazy time, the town transforms into a bustling city of shacks and vendors and theres music and boat racing and apparently the flood of prostitutes that pours in from Nassau is quite a sight, hah. The boats they race look like they would be insane, they are definitely meant for speed and nothing else. The boats are sloop style, something like 18 feet long, with 26 foot booms that hang way over the stern, and a 39 foot mast, which makes for a sail that looks ridiculously huge for the boats, and in order to keep the boat from foundering under the huge force of the sail, they use a prize, which is just a little board that goes off the side of the boat and they load people out onto it to counterweight the sail. They get anybody they can to come on board and act as crew, usually to run around and be weights on the prize, and we were told we would be able to get on one of the racing sloops if we wanted, which in itself would be worth the trip back down to Georgetown I think. Now I am not saying I dont want to come home, cause I am really looking forward to returning, we would speed up our return if we went back for the regatta, but man it sounds awesome.

As I said before I left a few things I had written on my Grandad's computer when he left, and my mom emailed them to me just a few days ago, so I am just gonna put them up now, even though its old news


VHF

In the boater community the main form of boat to boat communication is the VHF radio, right after semaphore. In the US it is highly regulated and as we cruised down the ICW it was used for things like hailing marinas, talking to boats passing you or that you are passing, as well as simple communication. You would hail the ship you want to talk to on 16 and then switch to a working channel, we always use 72, where you would talk about important things such as a shallow spot in the waterway, or that tree we just passed that looks like a deer. That is how things went in the US, but down here in the Bahamas the radio is not regulated by anyone but the cruisers and it becomes the inter harbor telephone. Everyone in the harbor stays tuned to 68, and boats are hailing other boats all day, you get to know peoples voices before ever meeting them. People hail other boats and then switch to a different channel, and you can almost always count on it that someone will be following you to the channel you pick to eavesdrop on your conversation, everyone ends up knowing everything that’s going on with everyone. It is really great to have that means of mass communication with all your neighbors, I wish something like that existed in the cities at home. At any time you can go on the radio and ask any question and usually someone will get back to you.
Every morning at 8 o’clock is the Georgetown cruisers net on channel 72, the net consists of the business section, during which local businesses will come on and do a little advertisement, usually 3 or 4, then the regatta, during which the cruising regatta events are discussed, community announcements, during which people announce things like my poker clinics I have been holding, and then boaters general, during which people do everything from offer free old dinghies to ask for people to join them in a discussion of quantum physics after the net on channel 73. If you need something that you think may be sitting idle on someone’s boat, just go on the net, want to find a boat to take you on as crew to Long Island, just go on the net, need some help with your refrigerator, your engine, your bocce ball game, just go on the net, it is like the internet and the telephone combined, and everyone is listening, it is great.
It is pretty amusing to listen to some people on the radio, you begin to hear tendencies go around, like some people say “over” after everything they say, some people say “come back” some say “out” at the end some say “clear” some say “roger” to indicate they heard something, some even “roger roger”, others “copy”, others “10-4”. You pick up a little French here and there, with the French Canadians everywhere. I now know all my French numbers. What a hideous language French is, I feel like that will hurt a lot of peoples feelings, but geez, its so mumbly and nasaly and gross. Maybe you have to learn it to appreciate it? And I have been told that it may just be The French Canadian accent. When people want to switch to channel one one (that’s how you say numbers, one by one, there is no 12, no 67, it is six seven) but when they say 11 in French it just sound like someone is choking or something. Anyway, that only adds to the character of the whole thing, it may be one of my favorite things about the cruising community. The closest thing I can think to this that exists in the states is Craigslist, but there is only a select group of people that ever go on there and the feedback is not nearly as immediate. I am really surprised that more people don’t get little handheld VHF radios, they can transmit for miles, and even in places like the city the traffic would be minimal. Sure you get a few radio Nazis, demanding proper protocol on the radio, and the jerks who use it for means other than those intended (though it is usually for the sake of humor), but as a whole I think it is great to be able to instantly communicate with everyone around you, I think I am going to start a movement for a VHF radio enabled community wherever it is I end up living.

Edit: After I wrote this post I did the "Fish Net" parody that we presented at the No Talent Show for the cruising regatta, which I wrote about a few posts ago, this give a little taste of the fodder for my fish net.



2-18 This is what I was expecting.

Another adventure into the out islands this last week was really incredible, this is what I was expecting when I came down here, and it is awesome that it is finally happening. When Grandad made it clear that he wasn’t moving from Georgetown I was pretty bummed and thought I would be stuck here for the duration, but Mark and I have found plenty of opportunities to get out and explore the Bahamas and it is great. Rio Dulce, friends of Brian’s that have been traveling with us for a while, invited us to go along with them to Conception island one morning, and at a couple hours notice we were ready to go and out of there. So we headed out on Rio Dulce in the morning and got into Conception island that evening, traveling with two other sailboats Priority and Zola. Priority is a couple with two kids and they are an awesome family, the parents were a lot of fun to hang out with and the kids were really cool. Zola was a newlywed couple, just married in Vero Beach Florida, and they are out cruising for their honeymoon, a wonderful young couple and also a lot of fun. Rio Dulce is a family of 5 who have been cruising their entire lives, the boat is a 47 foot Catana catamaran and it is beautiful, we were really privileged to be able to sail on her. It seems everyone I meet out here I would be content sitting down for hours and talking about their lives, there is always something interesting, and these families were no exception, though I guess that’s what you get when you are meeting people who are cruising the Caribbean. On the sail to Conception we were cruising along with Zola and Priority probably half a mile off our beam and we kept hearing them on the radio talking about all the fish they keep catching on their trolling lines, we were trolling lines, but not getting as much as a bite. Dick, who owns Rio Dulce, was just flipping out every time they came on the radio, it was pretty hilarious, and no matter how many lines we put out, we got nothin. So we got to Conception fishless, but with friends who caught loads of mahi and tuna, so we invited them over and they brought over the freshly caught and prepared fish and damn was it delicious.
In the morning we all went diving on the reefs around the island, the staghorn corals were absolutely beautiful and the immensity of the reefs was really impressive. After a while fishing on the reefs we got a couple grouper, lobster (a huuge one from Zola), snapper, margate. The island also has mangrove creeks winding through it that we explored a bit, the creeks are a breeding ground for lots of sea life and we saw some sea turtles flitting around, nurse sharks, and various other fishies. There is nothing like eating lunch, and being hungry because you were diving all morning fishing for the fish that you are eating. It’s a good way to live. Priority introduced us to the “slingshot” that afternoon, which is a crazy contraption, born of the mind of Dwane on Zola, which uses a dinghy and a halyard to send you launching through the air at high speeds, I think only a picture will do to describe it. Diving the next day was even more fruitful, Zola again caught the biggest lobster any of us had ever seen, I wont even do Dwayne the injustice of reproducing his daring feat of underwater lobster wrangling here, it was incredible though, and he and his wife Kim got 4 more lobster that day, it was enough to feed the two of them for a month I think.
Priority had a brilliant plan of drifting the mangrove creeks and we all set out, along with another boat, Wild Wind, and us 4 dinghys went way up into the creek, tied together and waited for the tide to go out, and drifted down the creeks with the current back to the entrance. We must have been quite a sight, Priority had a big umbrella up on their dinghy and we were just lounging along, every one layin around. A helicopter flew over and then circled back to get a closer view, buzzing us at 30 feet, it was sweet. Sitting there drifting along in great company through the mangrove creeks of Conception Island in the Bahamas, it cant get any better right? Then Dick hands me a Yeungling. I almost cried.
We set off for Georgetown the next morning, and in a quick mid trip decision decided to change our route to go to Long Island with Priority and Zola. On the way we stopped at a nice reef to do a little diving and we got enough fish to feed us for a couple days, I got my biggest jack yet. On the way we were trolling again, and we caught two barracuda, which was pretty awesome, but they are not edible, so it was less awesome. They eat all the little coral eating fish which get ciguatera from eating coral so they also have ciguatera, no barracuda meat for us. After making it to Thompson Bay for the night, the first thing I did was go into the Long Island Breeze resort and use Dick’s skype to call Kari and try to justify not talking to her for 2 weeks including Valentines day and our 1 year anniversary… so back me up here, the Bahamian Valentines day is a week after the American… right guys? So, later Mark and I took the other boats on a little cave tour in the caves we explored when we were on the island before and it was incredible all over again. The next day was an awesome adventure, Mark and I hitchhiked down the Dean’s Blue Hole after hearing from many people that we had to see it. After a few minutes walking down the road we get picked up by a big ol’ white Escalade and find ourselves in the company of three 50somethings, two guys and a girl, who when I asked them what they do there, they said they do what Michael Phelps does, swim and… well that other thing he is famous for doing these days, which they obviously did a lot of. And a little down the road, we stop in at a little dive shop and picked up William. William as it turns out, holds the record for free diving, a record which he set last year, in Dean’s blue hole, the very place to which we were en route. I chatted with William on the way, he trains free diving every day, with multiple sponsorships that is how he makes a living, and does spear fishing in his free time, or I guess probably both at the same time really. Once a year he attempts the record dive, he set it two years ago and broke his own record last year with a dive of 285 feet. Inconceivable. So they took us to the blue hole, got out and chatted a bit with us, and then left Mark and I to explore it. The hole is surrounded by cliffs, with parts you can jump off of that are something like 40 feet high. We sat around and marveled at the hole, 50ish feet in diameter and plummeting down into darkness to 600 feet deep. Both Mark and I then took the 40 foot plunge off the cliff into the hole, hopefully you see those pictures. We hitchhiked back, making a stop at Max’s Conch Bar, which had the best conch salad on the island and the best drink I had ever had- coconut water and gin. Man it was good. The next ride was Cecelia, homemade banana bread, took us back.
On our way back into Georgetown we ran up the spinnaker sail on Rio Dulce, a brightly colored giant of a sail, and show boated our way through the harbor and back to hamburger beach. I got back just in time to do my poker clinic at 3, the family was all over joyed to see us back, and now it is back to the good ol’ life in Georgetown. It is also worth mentioning a bit of excitement that occurred a couple days ago. I was planning on buying Kari tickets to come down to see me over spring break as a valentines gift, and when I tell her this on Monday… she tells me she already bought tickets and was going to surprise me, holy crap is that girl awesome, I gotta say I am a bit disappointed I ruined the surprise though. So now I have that to look forward to, Brian has volunteered as the chairman of Kids Day in the upcoming cruising regatta, so Mark and I will no doubt play a large part in that, so that will be interesting, and the cold fronts have finally decided to stop blasting us with 20 knot winds and chilling us to the bone with 65 degree weather every day, so we will be able to do some good diving over the next few days, so things are looking good around here in Georgetown, now lets see what happening, in your neck of the woods.

Big Fish got the Last Laugh

So, there is a problem with some bigger fish down here in the Bahamas, they eat smaller reef eating fish, which feed on coral, some of which contains a poison called ciguatoxin, which I have read is 1000 times more potent per volume than arsenic, so pretty nasty stuff. Well the bigger a fish gets, the more reef eaters it consumes, and the more toxin accumulates in its blood, so bigger fish can have harmful doses of the stuff. And I killed... a huge fish. We even pulled a reef eater out of its mouth when we were filleting it. So now it seems that Mark and I are suffering from a mild case of ciguatera, and if you google it, just about every site describes amberjacks as a likely species to carry the toxin. Its not so bad, just a little tingly in the extremeties, and that is even subsiding already, the best part is the reversal of hot/cold sensations, its kind of cool. So, nothing to worry about really, and even though I thought I won the battle, and had a hell of a time doing it, that fish definatly did get the last laugh.

Big Fishy Birthday

Hokay, so, we are making our way north again... kind of. We made it as north as Shroud Cay, and then we were invited to partake in birthday celebrations for one of the kids on Priority, which also happened to be my birthday as well (he is exactly 10 years younger than me- March 22 1996, how scary is that, 1996, seems like he should still be a baby), so we came all the way back down to Staniel Cay where we had been 4 days previous. Further south, woe is me, that means more time in the Bahamas, oh bother. We have been having a spectacular time in our journeys, the sailing has been magnificent, the weather has been great, and the fishing, oh the fishing has been outstanding.
Making our way up through the Exuma islands we base much of our decision of where to anchor on what good dive spots are around the area, and we have been finding some really great spots. I know I go on and on about the places we dive, so I wont get into it really, but we have been seeing some breathtaking wildlife. Eight foot stingrays, eagle rays, huge nurse sharks, bull sharks, outstanding coral growth, and through all of it I have been getting some great catches, a lot of which I put up pictures of. One day I was peeking in a hole and saw what I thought was a lobster tail hanging down, I speared it, pulled it out, and there was some cockroach/lobster looking mutant on my spear and I had no idea what I had just killed, take a look at the pictures of it in the Conception album. Turns out it was a spanish lobster and they are a rarely seen species of lobster down here and actually taste really good, better than the spiny lobster I usually get. I also got a couple rock crab, you have to look at the picture, in the Pipe Cay album, of one of them, the thing had claws so massive I kept diving down trying to figure out what species of animal I was looking at and after 3 dives down I realized I was just looking at a claw attached to a big freaking crab, so then we had a delicious crab dinner. Ok, and if you are tired of hearing fish stories, just hang on to your seat for one more, this one is a doozie. Just yesterday I was diving the rocks right here in Staniel Cay where we are anchored, same rocks we dove when we were here 4 days ago, and when we were here before, Mark told me about these gigantic fish he saw that scared the crap out if him when they went swimming by they were so big, and we identified them as greater amberjacks. Then Duane speared a monster snapper, and sharks were on the scene before he even got the thing out of the water, so there is a lot of big life on these rocks. So we are scouting the area, and Mark grabs my fin and points frantically at two huge fish that just swam by, the same two amberjack he saw last time we were here. We both just gawked for a bit, they were some of the biggest fish we had seen, and they were darting around in front of us at incredible speed, and then when we got back to the dinghy after a while we were taking about them and I thought about it and decided that if I got a shot on one, I would take it, hoping for the off chance that it didnt just run off with my spear and I actually bagged the thing. So we move up the reef a bit, get back in the water, I am swimming around, and there it is, one of the amberjack is circling a little coral head in front of me. So I approach it, expecting the thing to take off at any moment, but it just keeps circling, I get closer, it circles again, closer, still circling. So I have already made the decision that I am going to shoot the thing if I get a good shot, and in about 3 seconds he is going to circle right under me, so he comes by, 15 feet below me, I cock back the spear as far as it will go, and I take the shot. Nail him in the head, perfect shot right behind the skull and it penetrates all the way through his gills, and he is not happy. I now have this 4 foot mass of muscle flailing around under me, slamming into the ground trying to get my spear out of his head and he wont let me near him, so I chase and I chase and I chase, never quite getting ahold of the spear and barely keeping up with the fish, all the while trying to scream to Mark through my snorkel because I didnt want to take my eyes off the fish, and I knew I was going to need some help finishing it off. After chasing it for a few minutes I got it cornered against a rock and got the end of the spear, I got a fist on the spear on either end of the fish and led his frantic attempts at escape to shore, practically being dragged the whole way. His flailing is now spilling huge pools of blood into the water as we move along and I remember the sharks that Duane encountered in the same spot. I get to a shallow coral head and climb on top, and standing in waist deep water, I hoist the thing out of the water. It is still flailing on the spear, blood is pouring down my arms, the water is saturated with blood around me, and I am weighing my options, the thought of sharks circling becoming more and more real in my head as the water gets a deeper and deeper red. There is a rocky shore 30 yards one way and the dinghy 50 yards another way, both of which require me to let the fish back into the water where it might wrestle off the spear, or might just take me for a ride. I look around, no sign of Mark, I give a couple shouts, and nothing, so I start heading for shore. I realize quickly thats not happening, I am keeping that thing and its blood out of the water as best as I can, so I get back up on the coral head and just keep shouting for Mark. He finally rounds the corner and I hold the behemoth up above my head to let him see what is going on, and he books it to the dinghy, starts over, and when he gets about 10 feet away, I realize its all good, I got the fish, I havnt been attacked by sharks, so I think about what just happened, and just break up laughing, I must have been quite a sight. I hoisted the thing in the dinghy, clambered in myself, and we both laughed and gawked in disbelief at the size of the fish that was taking up the entire bottom of our dinghy. So we then went on our show off rounds, going to all the other boats we were diving with, all of our friends on sailboats, and then got back to the boat and started on the monumental task of cleaning the thing. When all was said and done, we filled 4 ziplock 1 gallon bags full of meat, the fillets were 4 inches thick and we didnt leave an ounce of meat on the fish, we measured it at 42". After the filleting was done, and we had been tossing skin and scraps over, I actually dove in the water to clean off, Mark and I keeping an eye out for approaching dark spots, and then I saw one coming, I scurried to the boat and out of the water, and an at least 8 foot shark skimmed the surface right where I was just swimming right when I got out. After that we took the carcass and hung it over the side with a line, the resulting pictures of us teasing the sharks with it are pretty awesome, its the same shark that just about got a taste of me. So in the end I am left with something like 20 lbs of meat, a majorly bent spear, and a really good fish story.

Ok, so that last one was worth a read right? We are going to be holed up in Staniel for a couple more days waiting out this cold front before we start north again, and we will be heading up the Exuma chain, to Nassau, and then through the Abacos and from there we will set off for the east coast, probably some time at the end of April, and start up the ICW. But for now, its my birthday, and all the boaters we are with made it great, I was treated to birthday songs from Gottalife and Priority this morning, Bird on a Wire made some bread and cake which are sitting in the galley waiting to be devoured, I got some nice home made bling from the girls on Gottalife and Bird on a Wire, Mark bought me a delicious lunch at the yacht club when we went in to town to talk to mothers and girlfriends, and we had a grown-up (Ya, thats me now, I am old) movie night and all watched Office Space to close the evening. It was a good day, plus that present from Poseidon yesterday, I think I could do a birthday like this every year.

Regatta

The Georgetown Cruising Regatta is the apex of the Georgetown cruiser experience. All of the cruisers come together to create this 2 week long celebration, and the ridiculousness of the cruising community is made readily apparent as the days of the regatta unfold. To begin with, in a normal regatta, the races play a pretty large part in the whole thing, and in the races the point is to sail the course the fastest. In this regatta the races are just another event, playing second fiddle to the coconut harvest and maybe the scavenger hunt, and the main focus is not on going fast, they give the best prizes to the people who take the best pictures, cook the best desserts underway, and catch the biggest fish, and the prizes are usually rum or some type of alcoholic beverage. The whole regatta is carried out in this sort of fashion.
Opening night is host to the "No Talent Show" which was a spectacle of folks with seemingly no self restraint going up and making fools out of themselves, from the 70 year old french lady Nicole (the same one who took me out in poker 2 weeks in a row) who is about 100 pounds over weight and has a bust that weighs as much as me going up to do a belly dance in a sheer pink tutu get up with the town madman Hanz in a similar outfit behind her trying to mimic her (surprisingly graceful) moves, to the family of 5 trying to do the evolution of dance, the loads of karaoke, broadway songs, songs with sailing lyrics added, the "Booze Brothers", The California Rasins, the old fat chick who just went up and downed some wine on stage while "Red Red Wine" played, the French guys and their crossdressing, and the parents covering eyes of children when some guy (french of course) wound up in a banana hammock, but, there was one act that displayed an incredible amount of talent. I wrote up a spoof to the cruisers net that goes on every morning in Gtown while I was in Conception, it was the underwater fishing net, hosted by Mike Mahi, with the water (instead of weather) from Franz and his pet catfish whisker 5 (instead of Hanz on his boat whisper 5), a sea dance party from rock fish Ron (instead of Rockin Ron, who throws all the dance parties in Gtown) and it went on like that poking fun at all of the Gtown celebrities, even Mayor Bill on "Rosanante" (in teh fishing net he was Mayor Krill on the shell of loggerhead turtle "Oceanante", daringly casted by Dick of Rio Dulce). Well from the first time we gave our mini presentation in Conception over the radio, the ideas came pouring in from the kids and adults alike for additions to the fishing net. We signed up for the No Talent Show and had a little meeting where everyone presented their ideas and we put them all together with the original script and set up a skit where all the kids and adults on our little group of boats had a part to play. We got up on stage with everyone hiding behind a sheet and me acting as the narrator as they all popped out and made their fishing net announcements, Kari even played an important role as general eye candy/sheet holder, and we closed with the thought for the day from Barnacle Brian: "A wise fish once said: I've got a fever. And the only prescription... is more conch horn" and the famous conch horn orchestra that was lining up to come on after us all blew their horns in salute, it was awesome. The kids had a blast and everyone was in tears laughing by the end of it, it really went over well, people were coming up to me every day afterwards to say how great it was, and insist that we had far too much talent for the no talent show, a couple of the A-list celebs even asked for the script.
So after a smashing opening night the excitement continued with the coconut harvest. They let go 700 coconuts on the other side of the little hole one anchorage and 100 people in teams of 4 raced to their dingheys and using flippers on their hands as oars, paddled across and collected as many coconuts as possible, drenching other boats with buckets, stealing/defending collected coconuts, cheating as much as possible. Me, Kari, Mark, and Gregg, a local kid from St. Francis, ended up in a three way tie for 2nd place and in a tense tie breaker where we tossed coconuts over a volleyball net into circles on the other side, I failed our team miserably and we wound up in a pathetic fourth place. After that madness we went to the Texas Hold'em poker tournament, which I dealt in, and we all got out pretty early, though I did have two students in the top 4 who came to my clinic two days before, and I actually won the week before, a $100 prize, so I was allright with the loss. A bonfire on the beach with a bottle of wine given to me by Fred (which he won for getting the first full house at the table) was a nice way to end the day.
A scavenger hunt the next day with Dwayne and Kim from Zola, Mark, Kari, and a kid J who we just met, was fun, but the ridiculous list of all red items (to fit the Red Hot Nights theme of the regatta) was pretty impossible to fill, most of the items we got were a result of a little creativity and a lot of red sharpie. The winning team was Gregg who lives there, one of his friends, and Whistling Winds (a couple of the A-celebs in the harbor), they won for the 4th year in a row, dang cheaters.
We also helped run the children's day, which my Uncle volunteered bravely to be the chairman of, and we had fun doing a bunch of activities with the (mostly bratty) cruiser kids and the (mostly awesome) local kids from the nearby primary school. We ran around and did relay races and obstacle courses and all kinds of fun stuff, and Cory, who I hear is a mad sick rapper, made us a cheer "We are the orange team, everywhere we go you can hear us scream..." to the tune of Iron Man.
Well after all that madness we were looking to get out of town, start heading home. Kari went to the airport and we were getting ready to go, I was actually cleaning Fred's hull, and he said he heard someone calling me on the radio and it sounded like they said Kari. Turns out she was calling me from a taxi on her way back from the airport because her plane was leaking fuel and her flight was cancelled, so she had to stay another day, poor girl, and we delayed our departure one day. She started on her journey home Tuesday and we got out on Wednesday, though we will be taking a bit longer than her. We will be heading up the ICW by mid April, and if anyone has nothing to do for a month or so, we could use some crew (Alan? eh? summer break? All of you looking for jobs? Nobody is going to hire you, get over it... nawww jj ((that means "just joshing", I kind of like the phrase "just joshing" better than "just kidding" (((jk))) and I think that this whole jj thing could really catch on if it is given the right exposure, my widely read blog is a good start, though it will inevitably be misinterpreted to mean "just joking", which I still like better than "just kidding", but I think that "just joshing" has a more distant interpretation than "just joking" from "just kidding" and is therefore a more necessary addition to the online lingo lexicon))), though I guess you all have lives to live up there in the real world. So, Kari brought me down a laptop, and with a puter of my very own I will be able to email and whatnot more readily, so I hope to hear from you people soon. Have a wonnnnderful day.

On the move again

The last 2 weeks have been a slur of activities, and it has been awesome. The Georgetown cruising regatta started on the 6th and there was tons to do with that going on. Kari came down the 26th and I hitchhiked out to meet her at the airport. Sitting there waiting for her I talked with some of the taxi drivers and watched them playy dominoes. They play while waiting for planes/customers arrive at a little table by the lot where they park their cars and they go around the table so fast you can hardly catch what is going on. They slam the dominoes on the table for absolutely no reason and chit chat in their hardly discernable bahaman accents the whole time. It is quite a spectacle to behold, especially since it goes on all day every day.
Diving has been going well lately, I have decided that every guy should learn how to spearfish some time in his life, it is quite satisfying to know that you can go out at any time and spear a freakin fish for dinner. I have been getting a lot of fish when I go out, except one day the fish were all in hiding or something and nobody on our boat had hit a thing. I was desperate to get a fish and I spotted a big trigger fish, which are edible, but they are big beautiful fish, it was all black with bright blue accents, and I approached it with my spear cocked ready to fire when I decided it was just too dang pretty and I would let it go, and then when I surfaced, Gottalife's dinghy was coming right past me, so if I hit the thing I would have come up to the girls screaming in terror at the huge beautiful fish hanging on my spear... good thing I didnt get it. I ended up with a lil grunt that day, the only catch of any of the 5 guys in our dinghy. One of the guys was Charlie off a 40 foot catana catamaran "Kaya". He was a silver medalist in the 2004 olympics and is a pretty awesome dude, he actually left Mark in charge of his boat while he flew home for a couple weeks to sail in a race, and man is it a gorgeous boat, if anyone is planning on dropping a million on a yacht, the catana is a pretty good option.
Nassau grouper season started on March 1st, which was a pretty big deal, cause you would see huge nassaus before and they would just sit there and look at you, they are so cocky that you can literally whack them with your spear and they just twitch a little bit and grunt, which I am convinced is just them laughing because you couldnt shot them. But now... we can spear the dang things. We went out at 7 am on the 1st to get an early start on the season, Kari's second day in the Bahamas, she wasnt thrilled to be dragged out to jump in the water that early, but she did it with a smile on her face with romise of good fish for dinner. And nothing. I have not had a day that I came back with nothing for a long time, not even a freakin grunt. Nothing. And with Kari on the boat it was that much more embarassing. After that frustrating morning, Mark and I went out to out secret dive spot to try to get us some dinner. I got a superb shot on a really nice sized snapper, must have been a 15 foot shot and I had to chase the sucker around, he was big enough he took off with my spear through his side and led me on a chase for a while, but I got him. Still desperate to get one of those Nassaus, Mark and I stuck around for a while and he pointed out a hole where he saw one hiding. I came over the ridge above the hole and just before the grouper made his escape I nailed him right behind the gills dead center, knocked him out cold. I also speared a huuuuge margate that day, fought with it for a couple minutes on my spear, he got off, I chased him through a cave, got all bloodied up and stung by fire coral, speared it again in the cave, he got off again, and then dissapeared forever. I still think of that fish every day. The one that got away.
Ah well we are heading back to sea son, I am at Black Point on my way up the Exumas Chain and we are heading in for bread and internet, you know, the essentials, we will probably be exploring the exumas and the Abacos for about a month and then we will be back in the states and homeward bound, I will try to get on as often as possible.

Alas

So, I fail at this whole blogging thing, I have good intentions, and they just never play out.

My grandmother's health has worsened so that she had to fly home a week ago, they are not sure what the problem is, but she is currently on her way home and on the mend. Mark and I are left on Sandpiper and we will be heading out of Georgetown in the next week, hopefully I will be able to get a more detailed update on here before we leave, all of the updates I had written on my Grandad's computer and all the pictures I had left with my grandparents, so... that wont be on here for a while. Kari is down here and the cruising regatta is going on, so we are nice and busy for now, and we will be underway in just a few days, so hopefully I find some time for this somewhere in there.

This is the Bahamas

This is what I was expecting.

Another adventure into the out islands this last week was really incredible, this is what I was expecting when I came down here, and it is awesome that it is finally happening. When Grandad made it clear that he wasn’t moving from Georgetown I was pretty bummed and thought I would be stuck here for the duration, but Mark and I have found plenty of opportunities to get out and explore the Bahamas and it is great. Rio Dulce, friends of Brian’s that have been traveling with us for a while, invited us to go along with them to Conception island one morning, and at a couple hours notice we were ready to go and out of there. So we headed out on Rio Dulce in the morning and got into Conception island that evening, traveling with two other sailboats Priority and Zola. Priority is a couple with two kids and they are an awesome family, the parents were a lot of fun to hang out with and the kids were really cool. Zola was a newlywed couple, just married in Vero Beach Florida, and they are out cruising for their honeymoon, a wonderful young couple and also a lot of fun. Rio Dulce is a family of 5 who have been cruising their entire lives, the boat is a 47 foot Catana catamaran and it is beautiful, we were really privileged to be able to sail on her. It seems everyone I meet out here I would be content sitting down for hours and talking about their lives, there is always something interesting, and these families were no exception, though I guess that’s what you get when you are meeting people who are cruising the Caribbean. On the sail to Conception we were cruising along with Zola and Priority probably half a mile off our beam and we kept hearing them on the radio talking about all the fish they keep catching on their trolling lines, we were trolling lines, but not getting as much as a bite. Dick, who owns Rio Dulce, was just flipping out every time they came on the radio, it was pretty hilarious, and no matter how many lines we put out, we got nothin. So we got to Conception fishless, but with friends who caught loads of mahi and tuna, so we invited them over and they brought over the freshly caught and prepared fish and damn was it delicious. In the morning we all went diving on the reefs around the island, the staghorn corals were absolutely beautiful and the immensity of the reefs was really impressive. After a while fishing on the reefs we got a couple grouper, lobster (a huuge one from Zola), snapper, margate. The island also has mangrove creeks winding through it that we explored a bit, the creeks are a breeding ground for lots of sea life and we saw some sea turtles flitting around, nurse sharks, and various other fishies. There is nothing like eating lunch, and being hungry because you were diving all morning fishing for the fish that you are eating. It’s a good way to live. Priority introduced us to the “slingshot” that afternoon, which is a crazy contraption, born of the mind of Dwane on Zola, which uses a dinghy and a halyard to send you launching through the air at high speeds, I think only a picture will do to describe it. Diving the next day was even more fruitful, Zola again caught the biggest lobster any of us had ever seen, I wont even do Dwayne the injustice of reproducing his daring feat of underwater lobster wrangling here, it was incredible though, and he and his wife Kim got 4 more lobster that day, it was enough to feed the two of them for a month I think.
Priority had a brilliant plan of drifting the mangrove creeks and we all set out, along with another boat, Wild Wind, and us 4 dinghys went way up into the creek, tied together and waited for the tide to go out, and drifted down the creeks with the current back to the entrance. We must have been quite a sight, Priority had a big umbrella up on their dinghy and we were just lounging along, every one layin around. A helicopter flew over and then circled back to get a closer view, buzzing us at 30 feet, it was sweet. Sitting there drifting along in great company through the mangrove creeks of Conception Island in the Bahamas, it cant get any better right? Then Dick hands me a Yeungling. I almost cried.
We set off for Georgetown the next morning, and in a quick mid trip decision decided to change our route to go to Long Island with Priority and Zola. On the way we stopped at a nice reef to do a little diving and we got enough fish to feed us for a couple days, I got my biggest jack yet. On the way we were trolling again, and we caught two barracuda, which was pretty awesome, but they are not edible, so it was less awesome. They eat all the little coral eating fish which get ciguatera from eating coral so they also have ciguatera, no barracuda meat for us. After making it to Thompson Bay for the night, the first thing I did was go into the Long Island Breeze resort and use Dick’s skype to call Kari and try to justify not talking to her for 2 weeks including Valentines day and our 1 year anniversary… so back me up here, the Bahamian Valentines day is a week after the American… right guys? So, later Mark and I took the other boats on a little cave tour in the caves we explored when we were on the island before and it was incredible all over again. The next day was an awesome adventure, Mark and I hitchhiked down the Dean’s Blue Hole after hearing from many people that we had to see it. After a few minutes walking down the road we get picked up by a big ol’ white Escalade and find ourselves in the company of three 50somethings, two guys and a girl, who when I asked them what they do there, they said they do what Michael Phelps does, swim and… well that other thing he is famous for doing these days, which they obviously did a lot of. And a little down the road, we stop in at a little dive shop and picked up William. William as it turns out, holds the record for free diving, a record which he set last year, in Dean’s blue hole, the very place to which we were en route. I chatted with William on the way, he trains free diving every day, with multiple sponsorships that is how he makes a living, and does spear fishing in his free time, or I guess probably both at the same time really. Once a year he attempts the record dive, he set it two years ago and broke his own record last year with a dive of 285 feet. Inconceivable. So they took us to the blue hole, got out and chatted a bit with us, and then left Mark and I to explore it. The hole is surrounded by cliffs, with parts you can jump off of that are something like 40 feet high. We sat around and marveled at the hole, 50ish feet in diameter and plummeting down into darkness to 600 feet deep. Both Mark and I then took the 40 foot plunge off the cliff into the hole, hopefully you see those pictures. We hitchhiked back, making a stop at Max’s Conch Bar, which had the best conch salad on the island and the best drink I had ever had- coconut water and gin. Man it was good. The next ride was Cecelia, we stopped for some homemade banana bread, and she took us back.
On our way back into Georgetown we ran up the spinnaker sail on Rio Dulce, a brightly colored giant of a sail, and show boated our way through the harbor and back to hamburger beach. I got back just in time to do my poker clinic at 3, the family was all over joyed to see us back, and now it is back to the good ol’ life in Georgetown. It is also worth mentioning a bit of excitement that occurred a couple days ago. I was planning on buying Kari tickets to come down to see me over spring break as a valentines gift, and when I tell her this on Monday… she tells me she already bought tickets and was going to surprise me, holy crap is that girl awesome, I gotta say I am a bit disappointed I ruined the surprise though. So now I have that to look forward to, Brian has volunteered as the chairman of Kids Day in the upcoming cruising regatta, so Mark and I will no doubt play a large part in that, so that will be interesting, and the cold fronts have finally decided to stop blasting us with 20 knot winds and chilling us to the bone with 65 degree weather every day, so we will be able to do some good diving over the next few days, so things are looking good around here in Georgetown, now lets see what happening, in your neck of the woods.

out and about

Those of you who have been checking on my spot know by now that I had a bit of a foray into the world outside of Georgetown a few days ago. I got on the morning cruisers net and asked if any of the boats that are participating in the upcoming race from Georgetown to Long Island would like crew. Fred on Casa Maré took us on, he is a single hander, probably in his mid 60s, and he took on both me and Mark for the trip. He was on an Irwin 35, which turned out to be a pretty nice boat, the build quality wasn’t great, but it was laid out nicely and sailed great. We made the 37 mile course in 5 hours and 42 minutes on the way there and 4 hours 51 minutes coming back, averaging a respective 6.5 and 7.3 knots, so it was pretty quick sailing, winds were around 20 knots and with a following sea on the way home, seems like we were cruising at hull speed the whole way. The hull speed of the boat is the max speed at which it can travel efficiently, above it the bow wave is too big or something like that and it takes much more energy to get more speed, the equation for monohulls is something like the square root of the boats length at waterline times 1.7, which turns out to be 9.3, so I guess we weren’t doing quite hull speed, but we were doin a steady 8 knots for a while, which is cookin for a 35 footer. Out of the around 35 boats in the race we got 13th, better than I was expecting, and once we got there, they had all kinds of activities lined up for us and the other racers. Thursday night we had a dinner at Club Thompson Bay, and the owner, Trifina, cooked up one heck of a meal. Grouper, conch fritters, potato salad, cole-slaw, rice n peas, wings, ribs, mac n cheese, all washed down with some Kalik. We stuffed ourselves to the gills and the three of us waddled back to the dinghy and made our way back to Casa Mare. The next day we went with friends of Fred’s to explore the cave we kept hearing about on the island. It turns out that there is a huge cave in a lady’s backyard just down the beach from where we were anchored. We walked down her driveway and she gave us permission to go check out the cave, so we walked down to the little beach in her backyard and spotted a little sign that said Cave next to a path going into the woods. A couple hundred feet down the path and it took you into a huge room with sun pouring in through holes in the top and roots from trees reaching down the 15 foot drop to find the ground, it was pretty spectacular. Continuing on, as the light became thinner and thinner, the sound of bats became more and more dense. The ceiling never got lower than 12 feet in the middle of the cave, and there were caverns going off to the left and right everywhere as we walked. One tunnel going off to the side of our original path really shocked me with its size, the beam of our flashlights was just swallowed by its depth. We spent an hour or so that day and all day the next day exploring the cave and taking pictures, hopefully I get the pictures up, it is difficult to get good pictures in a zero light environment, we sat the camera down and walked around lighting up the cave with our flashlights while the shutter was open. There were some crazy crabs we found too, bodies about the size of your hand, and bright blue and red… for whatever reason, you couldn’t see the color without a flashlight. After cave exploring we went to the local grocery store and bought pints of ice cream and sat on the deck at Long Island Breeze next to the pool overlooking the bay, it dosnt get much better than that. Ok, so then Friday night, after gorging ourselves Thursday night, the cruisers had a potluck dinner at the Long Island Breeze, and we again stuffed ourselves silly on all the casseroles and pasta and various goodness and desserts we could get our hands on. Fred got an award that night for hospitality in picking up two hitchhikers (me and Mark), which was a pink neck warmer someone brought as a gift, and he wore it as a hat for the rest of the night. Stylin.
Saturday on Long Island, Mark and I decided to go on a bit of an adventure. We hitchhiked the 50 miles or so to the bottom of the island, just happening to get our last ride from the guy who lived at the very last house on the road. We walked on from where the road ended, rounded the tip of the island, which was lined with huge white cliffs and stretched of untouched beaches. There was lots of flotsam, wrecked boats, seaweed, shells. It was insane the amount of shoes that are washed up on the beach there, where do all those shoes come from? Hundreds, literally hundreds of shoes every ¼ mile. A big thing to do on the island is to find sea beans, which are seeds from plants in Africa that float all the way across the ocean and wind up on the beaches here. There is one bean that looks like a mini hamburger, so our goal for the day was to find as many of those as we could, I found 7 all day I think. We walked the shore all the way across the island, scaling cliffs and navigating thick brush and jagged iron rock, both in the light and dark. We walked somewhere between 15 and 700 miles, and after our 9 am start, we finally got back to the road around 8 pm. The kid that picked us up was only going 10 miles or so down the road, but he said that he decided to just take us the whole way, going probably an hour and a half out of his way to take us back to the Breeze, and that is no surprise down here, you see that kind of stuff happen all the time, after we got back, we were sitting by the road because the Breeze was closed, trying to figure out how to get ahold of Fred, when a car stopped cause we were just sitting there, brought us to his house down the road, called Fred on his VHF, and dropped us off at a dock for Fred to dinghy over and get us. They are a different breed down here, the rest of the world could use a little Bahamizing.
When we got back to Georgetown, Grandmother and Grandad were in great spirits, Brian had been serving on them hand and foot, they hadn’t even gotten into our dinghy the entire time we were gone, Brian did it al for them. So, Grandads blood pressure is at a record low, but we are back now so it is starting to rise. They could hardly contain their… excitement… that we were back. So we are back in Georgetown now, the internet hast been working on Stocking for the past few days, but hopefully I will get this up soon, I am also mailing a few things out, some of the cool shells I found, a lucky few might get some hamburger beans, maybe a dead baby shark. Anybody want a conch horn? I have made a few, everyone plays their horn at sundown in the harbor, it is pretty cool, they can also be a great way to wake up roommates/siblings, but ya, just say the word and I will ship you a conch horn. Oh, and also, I have been trying to find someone who has a spare laptop they would be willing to sell me down here with no luck, does anyone have or know someone who has a laptop sitting around they would be willing to sell? That would be great, let me know if you know anything. That’s all for now folks, have a wonnnnderful day.

Long Island

Dang, so I am at the Long Island Breeze, where I posted my last post from, and in between then and now Mark and I took an awesome trip down the Island and back. We met the world record holder for freediving, he took us to Deans Blue hole, a 600 foot deep blue hole where he set the world record last year. We went there with another diver Charlie, a guy Tim and his wife Rebecca (I am typing this as much to remember the names for myself as anything) and he brought us to the hole, taked with us there and a bit on the way, and then afterwards we randomly ran into them at Max's conch bar, delicious conch salad. Best drink ever: coconut water and gin. Dosnt sound very good I know, but it is, trust me. Uh, so we got a ride with this awesome old lady who has been camping on Long islands for the winter every year for 15 years, she lives in northern Canada, Got some awesome home made banana bread, man that was a great day. Again, I will be back with a bigger update later, I hope you are all well.

Hitchhikin

I have been out and about a lot the past few weeks, lots of the time spent in the middle of nowhere, and the time i spent in Georgetown they didnt have functioning internet, so I have been a little out of touch. I am in Long Island right now after spending a few days in Conception, I was so far from anywhere I even missed Valentines day... oops. I will be back in the big city soon, I will fill in the blanks a bit more then.

Nina

Nina cruising through the harbor.
Monica on the bow sprit
content with my volleyball on volleyball beach
Jib, staysail, fisherman, and main sail, all looking pretty
Heelin aong
Captain David.
Thomas doin his thing
Chillin with the kids
Approaching the anchorage in elizabeth harbor, with the video chase dinghy behind us

I have a few pics from our voyage on Nina, as you see. And by the by, Mark is back and so is Gottalife, I am no longer stranded. I think the grandparents and I had a good week. Hopefully things will be good now that everyone is back together. Grandad and I had a talk about how altruism dosn't exist and he has to realize that, and he agreed that he would try to do a little more for the people that do things for us, and that might help relieve some of the tension around here. Lets hope.

1/26/09

1-25

Its been a good few days, lots of adventure. I went out roaming on Stocking Island, just seeing what I could see, its really is a beautiful island. I met up on my journey with Monica from Nina, and she is a wild one, she sure loves an adventure. We army crawled through the underbrush, exploring a waterhole and cave, getting all scratched and bruised, saw a coconut tree in the distance and decided to go straight for it, and when we got there I climbed straight up the thing and grabbed 2 coconuts. They were deeeeelicious. When you newbies back in the states eat coconut you usually get it when the meat is dry, but here they eat it when the husk is still green and the meat on the inside is like jelly, it makes for a nice refreshing snack. I got myself a nice machete to get into those coconuts. When we broke open the coconuts we met some kids, 2 from Alaska and one from Canada, apparently having a machete is illegal in Canada and the one kid spent a night in jail for carrying one just like the one I have.
The next day I pleaded with Grandad to be able to do a favor for Nina, they were rowing 3 guests and luggage across the harbor in high wind because they had a hole in their dinghy, but I ended up helping them and even bringing them cookies and as a thank you they invited me to join them on a sail yesterday. Nina is a 70 foot schooner built in 1928 and was the fist American schooner to win the trans-Atlantic race, she won 2 fastnet races I think, and is one hell of a boat. She is 18 feet at the beam, and has a good 10 foot bow sprit, just being on deck is quite impressive. We sailed off the anchor and got all 4 sails up once we were underway, She has a jib, a staysail, a mainsail, and a fisherman, the fisherman is definitely the most impressive sail, flying above the staysail in between the main mast and the mizzen. Maybe you should just google it. Actually Google Nina, I am sure you can find something out there about her. So we went out and under full sail we slalomed the boats anchored off of volleyball beach. It was completely unnecessary and totally awesome, just showing off, making a good 7 knots, hiking so the leeward deck was dipping in the water, 16 hands on deck, and coming within mere feet of the boats at anchor. The captain gave everyone a job when they came on board, he really knew what he was doing, played the role of captain to a T, it was impressive. I was in charge of the starboard forward back stay. Basically the wire that holds the mast up. So we took a few trips up and down the harbor, Rosemary, the captain’s wife, made us a wonderful lunch and dinner, and I ended up staying on board overnight, playing poker with the kids, hanging out with the other crew, it was a great time.
Yesterday I explored the rest of Stocking Island, walking up over the northern tip, a brutal trip to make barefoot… but I did it. On the way back we came upon a little beach shack, very well kept up, called John’s Flip Flop Shop, and we later found out that it is the local nude beach. Luckily it was uninhabited when we found it, we saw names written in the benches of lots of the… older folks around the harbor like Hanz Solo and Mayor Bill… That would have been upsetting. But the island was beautiful, we found lots of little isolated beaches hidden in the rocky cliffs, a few caves cut into the walls, and I even found a sandal my size to finish the journey in! One thing that has been disappointing about the beaches around here is the lack of shells that are worth picking up. I was hoping to find all kinds of interesting things, but it is relatively barren, oh well.
Mark is still out in the ocean, incommunicado except for his spot, so if you are reading this Mark, you should drop me an email. And as for the rest of you, you should drop me an email too, I have been spending some time writing people here and there, like some of the stuff I am posting on the blog today, but if you email me, I will write up a reply over the next week or so and send you a reply the next time I am online. Hope all is well, and GOOOO STEELERRRRRRRS.

Iz Da Bahamas Mon!

I would like to take a moment to tell you about the Bahamian folk who we meet around here. The first time I ever really sat and talked to a local was when I was looking at the shops around town and got to talking to the cashier at one of the 3 gift shops in Georgetown. She started talking about how cold the weather was, I was walking around in my short sleeves and shorts because it was 73 degrees outside, and it made me take notice at the attire of all the locals. Just about everyone was wearing hoodies and long pants, and it was freaking 75 degrees outside! It is funny that they think of that as cold, but I suppose for them it is, I mean, it get up to a whopping... 85 degrees in the summer... they are just spoiled.
One notable characteristic of the Bahamians is their unwavering kindness. Every encounter I have had with a local, they have done everything they can to be helpful and pleasant, and it is really refreshing to interact with them, to go through life like that. Everyone says hi to everyone, if you look like you could use some help, there are loads of offers to give it. My uncle and I were just out in the middle of the harbor cleaning fish and lobster, we have to get out away from the anchorage as to keep from attracting sharks, and we sit there drifting with our motor off filleting the fish. While we are sitting there a guy comes out to us, a ¼ mile dinghy trip, which is pretty substantial, and asks if we need help. We decline, show him our fish carcasses, and he goes allll the way back. Then 5 minutes later another boat comes by to ask if we need anything, we show the carcasses, they give the thumbs up and go on their way, we were out there for like 15 minutes and had two people go way out of their way to check on us.
The taxi driver who I always call, his name is Forrester Rolle, is always around town, we always see each other and talk about the Lakers, the Steelers, beer, whatever, and he knows evvvveryone in town. We go to the airport and he gets behind the bar and gives me a beer, cause he is friends with the owner, I randomly see him in the liquor store and he tells the cashier to treat me good, he beeps and waves at like half the cars we pass on the road. I though it was just him for a while, but as I spend more time here I realize, it is everyone, everyone knows everyone, and everyone is that friendly, and it is awesome. Kari and I decided to hitchhike out of town a ways and I didn't stick my thumb up at 3 cars before a guy stops and picks us up, we go a mile and he stops to let the other girl in the car out at a hotel and it turns out she was hitchhiking too, and on our way back again the 3rd or 4th car picked us up and brought us right where we wanted to go.
We go to volleyball beach almost everyday, and the owner of the “Chat and Chill”, which is the little burger shack/bar on the beach, she has a 6 year old boy who just runs around the beach making new friends everyday, and he is an awesome little character, his name is Kenneth, and he lets you know right when he meets you, its Kenneth, not Ken. He has made friends with me and my cousins and all the cruiser kids that hang out on the beach every day, and if they ever ask him for fries or a smoothie or something, he goes and tells his mom he wants one and then comes back and gives it to whoever asked, its pretty funny. Well Kenneth has a babysitter on Saturdays, every other day of the week he just roams free, but this kid, the babysitter, Alex, I think he is a freshman in highschool, I said hi to him a couple weeks ago, chatted for a second, and didn't see him again until today. My cousins and the other kids decided that all the guys and girls were going to get “married” so they all chose husbands and wives and played that game all day. I was sitting there watching the old fogies play volleyball and he said something behind me, I hardly heard him and then he said my name, I turned around and he was watching the other kids play their marriage game he looked back at me and said “Brendon, do they know nothing about love?” The genuine tone in his voice and the look of concern on his face really shocked me coming from a 14 year old kid who had only barely met me once before, but it was amazing, and I think it shows something, one of the few things, that they actually are serious about down here. And it is quite important indeed.
The Bahamian lifestyle is so laid back and carefree, you cant help but get into the mood a little bit yourself when you are here for a while. If you know me, you know that I already operate in that sort of manner, so I am loving it down here. I was always looking to excuse or legitimize my laziness, procrastination, and perhaps some overoptimism, I just never knew the proper way to do so. But now I know. One simple phrase- “Iz da Bahamas Mon!” What does it matter? Get over it! Enjoy your life! Life is good! Wanna have some rum with your coffee in the morning? Worried about what you are going to wear anywhere at any time? Wondering how can that possibly be legal? Waitress short you a dollar in change? Wondering why every car is covered in dents? Getting impatient that your food is taking too long? “IZ DA BAHAMAS MON!” That is their anthem down here, the philosophy by which they live. And live they do.

1/21/09

1-21

Well, Mark is out on some boat, probably getting the crap beat out of him by this weather on the way to the Virgin Islands. My uncle is planning a trip to Long Island with Rio Dulce and a couple other boats. And I am here with my Grandparents who refuse to budge from our current spot. We actually, instead of moving to a calmer anchorage, put down a third anchor yesterday when the wind started to pick up. So now where there used to be about 40 boats in our little anchorage, there are more like 15, and they are almost all crazy Canadians. 5 of the 7 I can see are flying a Canadian flag. I don’t know what it is, there are so many Canadians down here, they are all French Canadian, and they are all nuts. Apparently no more nuts than us though I suppose.
I cooked up all the fish I caught on the 18th, I made some kind of butter cilantro garlic potato lime concoction that I used as breading and fried them in. It was quite delicious, and along with some sautéed veggies and fresh guacamole it made for a nice meal. Once again, it really satisfies some innate primordial desire when you sit down to a meal you hunted, killed, and prepared yourself, especially when that meal is particularly delicious.
With Mark gone, things have actually settled down quite a bit here on Sandpiper. Tensions were getting high just before he left, due to... conflicting personalities/intrests? But they really seem to be in a better mood lately, a little less stressed. Me however, I am going just a little bit more crazy, and I am not sure how long I will last, and that is just sitting here at anchor, I am glad we are not going to be underway anytime soon, that wouldn’t be fun. Last night I heard the local hotel going over the VHF radio calling Gottalife, and I responded to see if they needed anything. They said that my Aunt Susan had called and wanted someone to contact her because there was an emergency. I got Brian on the Radio and he called Susan on his cell phone. Now we are all quite worried at this point, for someone to go to such extreme measures as to look up the closest hotel and have them go out on the radio to get someone to call them, well that seems like it is a pretty serious situation. Brain calls to find out it was my mom, and she was worried because Mark’s GPS Spot showed a blip going way further south than we are supposed to be. So, for those of you who watch the Spot, our boat was not stolen, nobody is floating around in the ocean, everything is fine, Mark just decided to jump ship, so that is no longer my spot, it is Mark’s. At this rate you can just assume my spot will only vary 50 feet as we swing around our now 3 anchors we have down in Elizabeth harbor. Oh well, I guess I will have to live with it here in Georgetown, I am going to go play some volleyball on the beach and hit Grandad up for that hamburger and Kalik he owes me. Oh ya, and I named my Dinghy: PITTSBURGH’S GOIN’ TO THE SUPER BOWL. So now when people call me, they have to hail me by that name. Its pretty awesome.

PITTSBURGH’S GOIN’ TO THE SUPERBOWLLLLLL. over.

1/18/09

1/18/09
Hello and welcome back to another edition of “LIFE IS GOOOOOD!!!” Here is your host Bill Lumberg, in for Brendon Rawlings while he is in the Bahamas. “Yeaaa Hiiii, Yeaaaaa, hiiiiiii, yeaaaa, yeaaaaaa, hiiiii, its Bill Lumberg, thaaaanks, yeaaaa, thats greaaaaat, yeaaaaa.”

...Anyway, while I am on great moments in comedy, there is a boat here called More Cowbell, and people get on the radio all the time and spurt out little bits of the SNL skit, it is pretty awesome. One of the things I miss most about being on the boat- No Youtube. I have been jonesing some Christopher Walken brilliance for weeks! Some Don't Fear The Reaper? Maybe a little Weapon of Choice? Aw man, I didn't even think of weapon of choice until just now. Please do me and yourself a favor, and look up the Weapon of Choice music video, it will make your day, or at least your hour. If that doesn't make your hour, I want to be living your life, well at least for an hour, cause that would mean that you are doing things better than watch Christopher Walken effortlessly glide in rhythm with the heavens as he tangos with perfection, and flies with the grace an angel.

OK, so probably the best thing that has happened over the past week is that I secured for us a new dinghy, for free, that is even registered in PA. That means I can legally take it home and dinghy to
Southside instead of drive whenever I am feeling nautical. Awesome. Other than that, it has been a pretty awesome week. I gave a poker clinic on Tuesday, teaching all the newbie cruisers how to play the game so that they will come to the tournaments that are held every Monday and Thursday. Like 13 people showed up and it went really well. Now, if you have ever taught someone to play poker, you know that sometimes there are those who just don't get it. Especially if you are teaching a group of 13 people of the age range of 50-75, then there are a lot of those people who just don't get it. Well of the 13 I taught, only one made it to the real tournament on Thursday, and she happened to be sitting at my table. She was one of those who didn't quite get it. She was the first one out at the table. I am the one who took her out... woops. She even said she was trying to use one of my tactics when she went out to me, so she pretty much hates me now I think.

We have been going diving as often as possible lately, Mark and I found a secret diving spot with Kari, and we have been trying to get back there. Wed. we went to the secret spot with a girl from a sweet 70 foot schooner that is circumnavigating and she caught 2 conch and a lobster, and that was without any real intent to catch anything. Thursday we go out with my Uncle Brian and Dick and Barnacle from Rio Dulce. I make the first kill of the day with a lobster, then Dick came up with a Margate, then I get another lobster, and then I hear Brian yelling about something. I swim over and he points down into a tunnel in the reef, out of which is poking the end of his spear. I swim down to see what was going on down there and the entire spear disappears. I looked up to see my uncle with his hand over his face in disappointment, thinking he has lost his spear for good. We look around a little and I see what we are looking for, the face of a huuuge grouper poking out from a nearby hole. Dick comes over and spears the thing a second time, and the two of them yank it out of the hole, Brian's spear still lodged in its head, and they triumphantly carry the 25 pound tiger grouper by two spears back to the dinghy. We all go back and marveled at the fish, and when we jump back in, a good 5 foot reef shark makes a beeline right for us. It slows down and circles while everyone jumps back up into the dinghy, but I stick around in the water for a little to see what his intentions are. He glides along the bottom right towards me, and I just lay there in the water next to the dinghy watching, he keeps coming, keeps coming, and then... keeps going, right underneath me, 15 feet down. That was kind of intense. I assume it was attracted by all of the blood and commotion we had been causing with our kills, but that is where we decided to call it a day. We went back, cleaned the fish and lobster, and made plans for a fish fry the next day.
Rio Dulce is a 47 foot catamaran, a Catana 471, and man she is a beauty, the Costigans, who own Rio Dulce, invited over Me, Mark, Grandmother and Grandad, Uncle Brian, Aunt Sheryl, Erin, Geneva, 3 people from vessel 3 at Sea, and 3 from Nina. That made for 19 people, all of whom brought over dessert, fish, lobster, appetizers, rum, wine, all kinds of goodness. 3 at Sea brought some amazing homemade mango salsa and some delicious gooey brownies. Nina brought conch fritters made from the conch caught Wed. I caught 2 lobsters which Brian steamed, and he made pasta salad, I made some guacamole, sautéed veggies, and vermicelli, Rio Dulce made cilantro lime cole slaw that went perfectly with the fish, some seasoned rice, and they prepared the grouper that Brian caught by breading it with cornmeal and ritz crackers and frying it. The 20 of us gorged on as much lobster and grouper as we could eat, mixing it with the veggies, rice, pasta, salsa, butter, all kind of endless deliciousness. Even after we were all totally satiated and more, that grouper was not even close to gone, it must have given 15 lbs of meat, and it just kept going and going. It was amazing.

Today Brian, Dick, Barnacle and I went out diving again and I had a great day fishing. I had never shot a fish before, and today I went for it. Barnacle pointed out a nice size red snapper in the distance, about 25 feet down, so I went for it. I came up slowly, spear cocked, and just when it started to decide it was going to get out of there I let it rip and got him right in the head, he thrashed around a bit, so I caught up to him, grabbed the spear, and jammed it down into the sandy bottom, right through his skull. Everyone has told me that red snapper is some of the best fish you can get, so I am quite happy with that as my first kill. I tend to do that, the first time I do something, I do it to the max. My first beer was a Guiness, my first cigar a Cuban, my first shot of liquor was 151, and my first shot on a fish fish- a big ol' red snapper, ha. And after the snapper I got a good shot on a blue runner, and then a rock hind grouper, all of a pretty decent size, not too bad for my first fishies. The rock hind grouper was a particularly interesting shot. Every now and then when diving you will come across a little cleaning station where gobies and wrasses eat away at the akin and mouth of bigger fish, it is a pretty amazing phenomenon, especially to see it in action, the trust that is understood, like when a big rock hind grouper lets a little fish into his mouth to clean, but dosn't eat it, for whatever reason, and everyone knows that is how it goes. Well, I violated that trust. I saw that grouper laying there on a rock in the reef with a gobie in his mouth and two wrasses cleaning his scales, I dove down and got closer and closer, and the poor sap didnt even think about moving from his little day spa. Nailed him right in the head. Ya, I felt kinda bad, but man did he taste good. So ya, it was a good day fishing, my uncle got a lobster too, so we will be eating pretty well the next few days.

So, aside from fish stories (which, as far as fish stories go, were pretty truthful), I have just been hanging out, meeting people. There was a bonfire some young folk were having after poker one day, my brother and I went down, and they were all ridiculous. Two chicks who were way too proud to be from Jersey, Monica, the chick from Nina, who has had her eyes on Mark and was... tipsy, some racist dude from South Carolina playing Jack Johnson songs interspersed with impromptu songs about Obama, the best one of which was titled I think: Obama Bahama, Obama Loves the Conch. Or something like that. It was pretty hilarious though, he was good. And then we realized that Monica's dinghy had blown away across the harbor, and she was passed out cold in the sand, not even able to stand up, which ended up in a fiasco of my grandparents not willing to help for some reason, us disobeying them to get the poor girl to her boat, and my Uncle helping Mark find the dinghy in the morning, so it was a night of excitement and drama that turned out fine in the end. Mark is now crewing for a ship on its way to the Virgin Islands and should be back in a couple weeks, the guy is flying Mark back when he gets there. I could have gone too, the guy needed more crew, but I have to stay here with the Grandparents, we might be going to Long Island Tuesday, so that is exciting, Mark said I could go next time...

Well, I hope that you are all enjoying the snow, we still haven't seen any down here yet, drop me an email and let me know how you are, I'll respond as quickly as I can, I promise, but hey, iz da Bahamas mon, it might be a while. Ha! I love being able to say that!

I am still in Georgetown

Just to avoid any confusion, Mark jumped ship and is on another boat in the BVI, I am still in georgetown, more on this story later.

Put da sting in yah ting

For the first time in a long time, I am coming to you from the same place as my last update! Sounds boring I suppose, but when that place is Georgetown, Bahamas I assure you it is far from boring. The previous weeks have been filled with family and friends, my parents and Alan came down for New Years, Kari also was down for a couple weeks, and Kari was the last one to go on the 9th . It was awesome having everyone here, and I hope some more of you find your way down.

With all the family here we filled our days with lunches on hamburger beach and at the Chat and Chill, enjoying Kalik on the beach, taking the Hobie cat out for short sails, making fools out of ourselves on the volleyball court (although the Rawlings team whooped up on Hanz Solo and his cronies), and generally exploring the island. The cruisers around here form an amazingly eclectic group, consisting of retired doctors on million dollar yachts, old salties who have been living on their tiny boats for decades, you have the organizers, the moochers, the fishermen, the divers... it is a crazy mix of people. There are an amazing amount of Canadians in the harbor, I still haven't quite figured out why yet, but I do know that every one of them has a few screws loose upstairs, perhaps even more than most cruisers, which is saying a lot. It appears that the group which we came into the Bahamas with was a great group to get in with. Hanz is widely known as the crazy creepy old man in town, and is always doing crazy stuff just for a laugh, yesterday morning he came over the radio saying he had a small child's life jacket and invited any “young mothers” to come to his boat to claim it, he has a fishy conversation every morning on his “secret channel”with a fellow Canadian about going on “hikes” before volleyball, and saying hike with the kind of emphasis that lets you know that they intend to do nothing of the sort... we all know what goes on. And Whistling Winds, who also came in with us, are the organizers of all the cool stuff that goes on. Willis hosts the poker tournament every Monday and Thursday, Kathy just had a Trivia night that we kicked butt in last night, they have run the morning announcements every morning. They are like microcosmic celebrities out here, and I am in the entourage.

Christmas was spent with family, we had a lovely dinner in my Aunt and Uncle's condo, my mom brought something like 24 dozen cookies, there was a Christmas eve show on volleyball beach, the highlight of which was our own Geneva and Erin along with the kids from Rio Dulce doing boating-modified carols on stage. It was best in show for sure. Down here in the Bahamas they have a celebration called Junkanoo on the night of Christmas day, the festivities don't really get going until 3 am, so my dad, Alan and I got up at 4 and walked into town where we walked into the back of a parade group, bass drums pounding, 10 foot headdresses flowing, whistles blowing, trumpets blaring, everyone dancing, it was a pretty amazing spectacle. They have 7 groups which compete, each group parading down the mile of road that is the heart of Georgetown twice throughout the night. It was really cool to walk around and see everyone so into the music and in the mood of the night, it made me feel like such a tourist because I really didn't understand the intent, it didn't have meaning to me, at least not nearly to the extent that it did to the locals, it was certainly a sight to see though.

When Kari came in I took a taxi out to the airport and made friends with the taxi driver, Forrester Rolle, taxi 24, he bought me a beer at the bar while we waited for Kari. It was great to see her after being apart for so long, I wish I had a picture of the 2 foot wide grin on her face as she rounded the corner, I know I had one on too. Over the next few days we went on many adventures through town and on the islands, having a lunch in the park one day that consisted of chex mix, ice cream, and a bottle of rum, now that is livin it up Bahamian style. New Years was quite uneventful, we skipped the New Years Junkanoo due to a downpour, but we stayed up for a New Years toast and then hit the hay. A couple nights later there was a meteor shower, Kari and I saw 50 meteorites in 20 minutes, and in the star saturated skies over the ocean, it was an amazing sight to see.

We went snorkeling one day on the outer reefs of stocking island, it was a great day and I speared a nice sized lobster which we later whipped up into a scrumpdelicious lobster alfredo. That was good eatin. The most exciting part of the snorkeling experience, however, was when I glanced over to see a good 7 foot bull shark gliding past the reef. I wasn't too worried until I pointed it out to Kari, and right when I did it took a sharp turn right for us, it approached until it was probably about 20 feet away and then turned again to continue on its way. That was awesome. We also saw another smaller one the next time we went snorkelsploring, and I grabbed the tail of a huge stingray thinking it was a piece of metal poking out of the sand... oops... apparently I have better dodging skills than Steve Irwin.




A few days ago I sent Kari off, it was a pretty heart wrenching moment to send her though those gates, good thing Forrester was there to buy me a Kalik before we headed back. So now with nobody around but the ol' grandparents and Mark, I have time to do things such as sit around and type up blogs, write letters, go on shell finding expeditions, so if you haven't yet, send me your address so I can mail you random crap. Zack, you should brace yourself for what I sent you back with Kari... well... its a baby shark. Its dead. Note: I will not (necessarily) send you a baby shark if you give me your address.

GO STEELERRSSSSS WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! There is a bar down here where we can watch the games and it is awesome. Proud to be a Pittsburgher.

And I have successfully written another ridiculously long blog, again I apologize. And the pictures are coming, I swear. I have a few more underwaters I didnt get up before of Thunderball cave and whatnot, there are some more amazing photos waiting. So, until next time... make good decisions.

SANDPIPER OUT

I GRADUATED!!

I FREAKING GRADUATED! WOO!!!!! HA!! YESSSSSSSSSS!

Final Destination

Here I sit in Georgetown, at the bottom of the Exuma Cays in the Bahamas. It has been quite a journey through the islands getting here, every stop we have made in the Bahamas has been an amazing experience. It is nice to be settled down in one place for a while though. It is especially great that we get to see the people who are coming in for the holiday season to enjoy the beautiful Bahamian weather. My Aunt, Uncle and 3 cousins are here now, my Mom Dad and brother are coming in on Christmas eve, and Kariiiiiii is coming on the 29^th! Woo!

After a beautiful gulf stream crossing and our stay at the Barry Islands Club, we began our journey through the islands to make our way to Georgetown. The Barry Islands Club was a perfect way to start the journey, it was just a little house where two guys lived and ran the joint, and ran it quite well, it was a nice little place. Our first day there we had to check in at the airport, we are illegal aliens, not allowed to touch the shore until we check in. Grandad wasn’t feeling well on the day we checked in, so I had to go to shore and act as “master” of the boat and do the loads fo paperwork for everyone aboard. We were walking to the airport when we were offered a ride by a dude passing in a golf cart. Myself and 4 other guys from the various boats we had met climbed into the golf cart, and on the way, as I sat in the back bed of the cart screaming down a dirt road, kicking up dust on our way to a ¾ mile stretch of concrete they call an airport… I knew this trip was going to be even more awesome than I imagined.

After waiting out the weather on a mooring ball at the club, a mooring ball is basically a permanent anchor with a line attached to a float that you just grab and hook onto instead of putting down your own anchor, in true Bahamian fashion, the mooring balls at the Barry Islands club were attached to trucks, cranes, and huge diesel generators that had been blown into the bay by a hurricane 30 years ago, so they were plenty secure to hold us through some wind. Well after waiting out some nasty weather, which they call a norther, which is just when we get a little taste of the crappy weather you all are experiencing up north, we headed out to Nassau. Coming into Nassau we were greeted by the towering behemoths that are the cruise liners in Nassau harbor. Getting through the harbor was quite an experience, dodging jet skis on one side and huge freighters on the other, it was a bustle of activity. We chose to go on past Nassau to Rose Island. This was my first experience navigating shallow coral head infested waters. With Mark on watch for patches of coral, and Gottalife leading the way, we made it to the anchorage without any trouble, though Gottalife did kind of slam into a nice chunk of coral on the way in. I actually went back to the spot and dove down to inspect the keel sized slice taken out of the coral, it was pretty impressive. As we sat in the anchorage by the island we saw quite a few tourist boats come in, we imagine they were showing the tourists the remote uninhabited islands, which my brother and I were roaming. We were the uncivilized natives that day I think. After exploring the islands we made our way into the city and got ourselves a new 15 hp Yamaha for the dinghy, which is awesome.

We made the crossing from Nassau to the Exumas, stopping into Shroud Cay, the first big island in the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park. This place is very well protected and is held with a sense of pride for many Bahamians. It was absolutely beautiful. There were mangrove rivers lacing the island, we took the dinghy down through the creeks, enjoying the landscapes along the way, saw a couple rays and loads of fish, and we came out on the opposite shore at an unbelievably beautiful beach. We hung around the beach, having a lot of fun in the wicked current that whipped out of the inlet to the creek, lounging on the finest whitest sand you can imagine, and climbing the surrounding rock cliffs to dive into the water or go to the top to see the breathtaking view.

Making our way to Warderick Wells, the main headquarters for the park, we took a mooring and we had talked to a park ranger about doing some volunteer work for the park. Lion fish are a recent invasive species to the Bahamas and they are doing whatever they can to keep them out of the park. We talked to the ranger about going out on a lion hunting safari, and he was definitely into it, regrettably that didn’t end up happening though, but I did spear one earlier today. Warderick Wells was a continuation of the beauty that we had experienced in Shroud Cay. There were blow holes that the waves crashing on the rock cliffs caused a jet of air to come screaming up through the hole and sent the waves shooting 50 feet up over the cliff. I of course climbed down to get right down in the turmoil, the sheer force of those waves was just astounding. Spotting the island were natural fresh water wells that were supposedly used by pirates when they needed a spot to hide out for a while. I climbed down in one of the holes and tasted the water. It was salty. I’m skeptical about this whole pirate business. We saw sharks, rays, the sunrise over the cliffs, pirate hide aways, crashing waves… it was an amazing place.

I feel like a broken record… but the next place we went… was amazing. Thunderball cave in Staniel Cay. It is the site of a famous scene in a Bond movie, I have never seen it, but apparently it is a big deal. We were wading around the outside of what is seemingly just a rocky island, and you go underwater and see holes in the side of the rocks. Diving down through the hole brings you up into a vast cavern with a 10 foot hole at the top streaming light down onto the water, giving it a glowing blue color. Silhouetted in the light are hundreds of fish, circling the cave, which is protected from fishing, without a care in the world about how close you get to them. The wildlife around the cave was the most impressive yet, and seeing it all in the hollow island was just spectacular. Mark decided that he would survey the top of the island, eventually finding the hole that opens into the caverns underneath. We all went into the cave and cheered him on, and he leaped down into the water, a 30 foot drop. It was pretty awesome.

After Thunderball we made our final sail down to Georgetown, it was a gorgeous day and a great sail. A group of dolphin joined us after a while, and 8 or so played with Mark and I on the bow for a good 45 minutes, they were skimming right on the top of the water, almost touching the bow of the ship, turning and twisting, and at times they would swim sideways and just look up at you for a while, you can just see how intelligent they are. I have a thing about touching… animals? I guess? And I was determined to touch one of the dolphins, I reached down over the bow and they were so close that I brushed one of their dorsal fins. It was pretty awesome. I don’t know why I do that, but I always get the urge to touch an animal that I probably shouldn’t, a stingray earlier today, that dolphin, I tried to get that barracuda, lizards, crabs, fish, urchins… I am going to end up hurting myself, hah.

So, now I am in Georgetown hanging out with the Kilanskis, and we are having a great time. Hopefully I will find a place I can get on here and update more often, and sorry for this lengthy post, there was a lot to cover. There is tons to do around here, volleyball every day on volleyball beach, hamburgers and beer on hamburger beach, a poker game with the old sailor men every Monday, Georgetown a short dinghy trip away… I think I am going to like it here.

Ooooh. Baracuda.

Well, since I didnt get the pictures up last time, I now have a decent connection and figured I would put them up since they are still on my flash drive, however i didnt put new ones on there, but rest assured there are some amazing pictures to come.

From the Bahamas!

Hello! I am sitting at the Barry Islands Club, mooching a laptop and the internet, so I will be breif. Our crossing was pretty smooth as far as gulf stream crossings go, it is quite amazing to be out in the middle of nowhere without a spit of land to see, we made it into the islands without any problems and now we are waiting for this cold front to get out of here to cross to Nassau. The only pictures i had access to are from our diving experiences today, a nice 6 foot baracuda was probably the highlight. And the connection wont even let me upload the images, so just imagine some sweet underwater shots of fish and whatnot. Diving is really great, I speared the lobster we had for dinner a couple days ago, it is quite fulfilling to chow down on the days fresh kill. The following days will consist of crossings through Nassau to the Exumas and we will make our way down the Exumas chain to Georgetown where we will anchor for a while, I look forward to seeing family and friends who are flying down to see us there, you should do what you can to be one of those people. We are waiting in a little Cay with white sandy beaches and turquoise waters, and they say it will only get better from here. I cant wait. Well actually I can. Life is good.

Bahamas Bound

We set sail in the morning, Making our way across the Gulf stream into the Bahamas. It has already been a great experience so far, and I expect it will only get better from here. Ill miss all of you freezing up north, wish me luck, and hopefully I will find a way to keep in touch. Bon Voyage!

We wait.

We have been sitting in Ft. Lauderdale for a few days now waiting for an opening in the weather that will allow us to cross the Gulf stream into the Bahamas. We came through Palm Beach, which was an impressive assembly of massive hotels, it was really cool to anchor in 12 feet of water and to be able to see the anchor crystal clear right to the bottom, we had not seen water that clear before, and have not seen it since, I guess Palm Beach is popular for a reason. Brian caught up with us for a bridge filled day on the waterway. Going through southern Florida is truely an amazing spectacle of gratuitous wealth. The houses lining the ICW are incredible, many of them with 100+ foot yachts parked on a dock in their yard. We saw a small nice looking house get demolished so that a bigger house could take its place, the tiny, maybe 1/4 acre lot alone cost 1.2 million dollars. The question of where all this money comes from is popular these days. The girls were fishing for coconuts, grabbing any they saw floating along with a net, we later cracked them open and ate them, quite delicious.

We met a crazy couple that sold everything they own and set out on a boating adventure from South Dakota on our way to Ft. Lauderdale. The day was full of excitement, with a 35 knot gusting wind and sttrong currents on your bow all day with 20 drawbridges to go through, that calls for a lonnnnng day. We got through it without getting into any bad situations... until we were docking. Going off the waterway onto the New River was a nice jaunt through luxurious neighborhoods, that turned into gigantic condos in the downtown area where we docked. The river was about 100 feet wide, with multi million dollar yachts lining the sides, a lack of communication left me sitting in the middle of the channel, in a quarter mile section with closed drawbridges on either end, a tide that was going out at a few knots, and a 30 knot gusting wind coming the same direction as the current. And I had to turn the 39 foot boat around in this narrow channel lined with yachts, I get it turned around, gettin close enough to the edge for Mark to push off the side to get our bow turned around. We are going with the current now, movin along, and I realize, this is going to be impossible. I see our spot, in between INXS, a 106 foot behemoth of a boat which I just found out is probably the boat that the producer that tried to sell Paris Hilton's voice sold when he realized she is a waste of life, well, in between that and another huge yacht, and i come barrelling in with the current and the wind whipping me along, stick my nose in, bring the stern around, it comes whipping around towards INXS, I am gunning the throttle, epic failure seems imminent, all 6 tons of the boat comes crashing towards the dock, and... nothing... I got it in position, under control, and she rested, two feet from the dock, didnt even rub a rail... woo! A video can be found here. It was essentially just like that, haha.

So here we remain, docked in the midst of multiple high rise buildings, in a channel s aturated with wealth, there is literally a Rolls Royce parked a few yards from our boat, next to a line of a whole bunch of other luxury cars, people walking their little yap dogs down the dock all day, with the occasional 120 foot yacht being towed through the channel next to us. It is pretty awesome. We went grocery shopping, that is always quite an experience, filling two shopping carts so high you can barely see over them, and then getting that back to the boat. We had lunch at the grocery store, and as we sat there, this guy came sprinting past us, a bag in each hand, and right behind him was the cop that was standing at the door. All the people that were standing on the corner started shouting GET 'IM GET 'IM, and all went OOOOOO when he did, it was awesome. I was trying to decide whether I would trip the guy if I saw it coming, I think that I would. What could he have been stealing anyway? saffron? Anyway, no pictures for now, I will get some more up before we leave the states, which is looking to be Saturday at the earliest, so after that I will be basically out of contact until May, so if you wanna talk to me, do it before then! Also, more people should give me their address so I can send something from the Bahamas. send it to BRawlings@gmail.com if you want something cool from the Bahamas.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! We are currently anchored at Conch Bar, not too far from Palm Beach, not the nicest place, but we will make Thanksgiving the best that we can. The weather is getting better every day, and it has been smooth sailing, we are really having a great time.

Mark and I decided to go back to the shore on the morning of the 21st, and we were met by a guy who told us that we are trespassing on NASA territory, pointed to a camera on a telephone pole, and said… they are watchinggg youuuuu. The pictures Mark took when I emerged from the brush with the American Yacht ensign were pretty cool.

After leaving NASA turf, we made our way down the channel to Melbourne. There we met Brian and Linda, who are friends of my aunt and uncle. They came and got us in car loads, and all 14 of us went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner, it was fun, though Mark and I got stuck at the kids table with the 4 little Hanna Montana girls. I ended up in the first car load back to the boats with 3 of the girls… we listened to Radio Disney and my fingernails ended up sparkly pink and purple by the time the rest of the crew showed up, so that was fun… The next day Brian took us to the zoo near their house, it was a really nice zoo, not too big, but they really did it well. There was a big cage full of parrots, you walk in and they flock to you if you buy cups of nectar. I just stood around and made a couple winged friends, one bird just sat on my head almost the whole time, it was pretty cool, made for some funny pictures too. Brian and Linda took us back to their house, where they had prepared an entire delicious Thanksgiving dinner for all of us, I am talking turkey, potatoes, cranberry sauce, the whole bit. They had a gorgeous house and the food was incredible, they are some awesome people. We spent the 22nd in Melbourne, fixing the dinghy engine and things like that. I made spaghetti squash and guacamole from a huge Florida avocado for dinner, it was delish. The next day we took a much needed Wal Mart and grocery run, it is stressful buying groceries with grandmother, she gets so depressed spending money, even if it is well needed. We took a short sail to our anchorage for the evening, and for the first time we put up both sails and turned off the motor (and we beat Brian to it). Standing behind the wheel of a boat under full sail, gliding noiselessly through the water, good music on the stereo, this is what it is all about.

The next morning leaving the anchorage, after our keel had a little scuffle with the and on the bottom, we made our way down to Fort Pierce. Gottalife and Bird on a Wire stayed back at the inlet to Okeechobee, Bird on a Wire is parting from us, it was nice to have them around, they were fun people, they are going to tour the Floridian west coast and meet up with us later in the Bahamas. We on the Sandpiper are out on our own now, we met old friends of my grandparents in Fort Pierce, Daren and Harry Lamb, they took us to their house and made us some really good food, they were really interesting people, she had written a few books, they lived in Singapore and Saudi Arabia, he was still building race car engines in his garage, they lived right next to a beach, and had an awesome dog and a macaw. We spent almost the entire next day at their house, Mark and I checked out the beach, it was empty, we found some cool things walking around, like a crazy stick bug and some battling tortoises. We went to dinner with the Lambs and they brought along Rita, a 90 year old lady they know and take care of. Rita was really awesome, she was sharp as a tack, it was really refreshing to see someone who has aged as well as she has, I can only hope I am as able as her when I am even close to that age.

We made our way out to Jensen Beach, it was a short way, so we went under full sail again, making an easy 5 knots under only sail in a light wind. Leaving the dock, Grandad insisted that he drive due to the difficult conditions, and he kind of made a mess of the job, Mark and I were busy bumpers on the other boats and pilings on the way out of the slip. I think I am officially the helmsman for good now. When in Jensen Beach, Mark and I took the dinghy to shore and I tried my luck with the casting net, I ended up getting quite a few little bait fish, and even caught 3 puffer fish, one of which was around 8 inches long, it was pretty cool. I cause a catfish using one of our little baitfish, we decided not to eat it, Im not sure how good bottom feeders are to eat, but we did cut it up and use it as bait, it disturbed me a little bit to kill him, but I am going to have to get over that, there is going to be a lot more of it on this trip.

And today, we are on our own after a nice short sail we are anchored at mile 1001 on the ICW, mile 1000 was a monumental occasion. We are now settling down for some thanksgiving dinner, probably spam and macaroni or something like that. I hope you all are well, and that maybe you have a little more luxurious menu than we do. Happy Thanksgiving.

Quick photo op

We made it to Melbourne, where Brian has some friends who are carting us around. I have had some free time and internet access, so I thought I would get on here and put up some pictures, I added a slide show on the right there. We have been getting some things done, fixed the sail, working on the engine, things like that. We even went to the zoo, which I will be sure to post pictures of later, it was pretty cool. We will be sitting around here for another day, maybe ill post some more tomorrow.

Freezing in Florida

The past few days have really been great. Well, much like the days before them. We have been staying at more docks lately, due to some foul weather, and just cause it is easier. We crossed the border into Florida on the 16th, warm sunny Florida... the temperature was 45 when we crossed the border, and the low last night was 26. I think Mark and I are bringing down the Pittsburgh weather with us. We stayed in Fernandina Beach, a nice quaint little town, we got a mooring at the city marina, you just sail up to a float and put a line through it, much easier than setting your own anchor. Going into town for dinner, we met this guy who was just walking around with his 4 year old daughter, basically showing her off, she was pretty awesome, it was a little creepy, but funny. They took us to a pizza shop that was absolutely delicious, always good to ask the locals. And. I finished my paper for phage genomics lab. Last paper. Ever. That felt great.

The 17th we got out with the sunrise, slipped the line from the mooring and were on our way. We kept hearing the coast guard come on the radio "Secuuritay securitay securitay, there is power line maintainence at mile marker 740" ("security" being the lowest level of urgency for an announcement, "pan" is the next, and then "mayday") We just kind of brushed it off as nothing, until we come to 740... I see a helicopter, something is hanging from the bottom of it as it flies around the high power lines... what is it? no... it couldnt be... what??? ya, thats a guy, on a 100 foot line, dangling from the bottom of a helicopter, flying at ridiculous speeds, around high power lines. It was insaaane. They must get paid tonnns of money. We have also been seeing lots of porpoise lately, they get in these huge battles and there is just crazy turbulence in the water, tails and fins flying. Must be mating season.

The 18th we had an easy day of sailing, still pretty cold, but our final destination was Daytona Beach, and we still went and got our feet wet. My cousins and the girl from Bird on a Wire went straight into the water, I was tempted to, but when everyone started making fun of the girls, I figured I would hold back, hah. We stayed in a dock that only charged 80 cents a foot for docking, so we were all over that. I actually steered the boat into a slip for the first time, and I did quite well, Brian even said I did better than him and our other boat partners, well at least thats what he said in front of Grandad, It took a little convincing to get him to let me do it, but he was happy with my landing, so that was good.

Today we are on our way to Titusville and are going through the Kennedy Space Center. Probably because of the protected grounds, the wildlife here is amazing. We have been seeing lots of falcons, heron, huge pelicans, more dolphin battles, we saw some flamingos, and on our way through a cut there was a bobcat striding across the rocks. Pretty amazing. When either Mark or I are below deck, we are inevitably called frantically to the cockpit to see some craziness going on, it was in the middle of writing about the helicopter that I was called up to see an island covered in birds, and then we saw the bobcat. It is awesome. Looking around now we can see the vehicular assembly building and the launch pads, they are impressively huge even from this distance, I have seen some of it up close, which just adds to the effect.

We are now at our anchoring for tonight, Mark and I went to the shore, a ruddy looking shoreline by a railroad track. It was a nice section of beach completely untouched before we got there, that is the kind of place I am looking forward to finding on this trip. There were really cool shells all around and these funky crabs in every shell I overturned, I found a yacht American flag thing and a puffer fish. So cool. Well, time to cook up something for dinner, it is tough to come up with my usual creations with such a limited selection, I do what I can. Thats it for now, goodnight.

On our way

It has been far to long since my last post, I am going to try to cut that down in the future, it is only good news since then. We are really getting in the swing of things with the boat, I have been doing a lot of the steering and I think I feel more comfortable now steering myself than letting my grandad steer. It has been a difficult journey getting him to really trust us with the boat, and we still have some things to learn, but I feel like Mark and I could handle the boat just fine if we were to take it out. We have been doing a lot more work with the sails, and we even put up a reefed main sail for just a little bit a couple days ago. We have been cutting across a few sounds giving us basically open water on which to sail, and we have been snaking our way through tiny cuts where every wrong turn sets you aground. Snow cut, Hells Gate, Rock Pile, Cape Fear, Mud River... We have made our way through some treacherous stretches, and I am proud to say that even though I do most of the steering, I am the only one who has touched the wheel who hasnt gone aground. They say that anyone who has never gone aground on the ICW has never been on the ICW, or they are a liar, I hope to be an exception to that rule.

We are looking at going out onto the open ocean for a stint tomorrow, I am really looking forward to it, getting under full sail, and letting the wind take us away. We are currently on Jekyll Island, Georgia and at a marina for the fist time this trip. I just took a real shower, and it was awwwwesome. On the boat, showers consist of a five second run of lukewarm water, scrub scrub scrub, 5 seconds of water to rinse. I think I normally use more water to wash my hands. So a real shower was a treat.

As we made our way into Georgia, the landscape changed dramatically. The waterway has been surrounded by vast marshes, it is just a field of golden grasses as far as the eye can see. When you get deeper into the swamp there were gnarly trees covered in spanish moss, it was pretty eerie at times, we even saw a few alligators to add to the effect. We have seen lots of wildlife that just blows my mind. I generally like to know what is going on when I make my way through the woods, and in the north east I am pretty good, but down here I am totally clueless, it kind of bothers me, but it is also really exciting. The birds on the ICW are really cool, watching the pelicans, sea gulls, and herons fish, and seeing all the different kind of interesting birds every now and then. Mark and I go out into the wild as often as we get a chance to. We anchored near St. Cathrine Island two nights ago, the island has isolated beaches covered in driftwood, and the interior was a protected endangered species rehabilitation area, apparently a zoo breeds zebras on the island, regrettably we didnt see any. As we tromped through the forest it was really incredible to see all the wildlife around, the exotic trees covered in moss, the birds, the lizards, the crabs. All that exotic foliage had its bad points though, the ground was thick with "saw palmettos" which just tore into your skin if you brushed it wrong, so I came out of the forest a smiling bloody mess. I found some marshes near the forest that I went tromping through, not able to see through the brush where i was stepping, joking that I was going to run into an alligator, and then I found a deer carcass dragged up on the bank... so I got out of the water. I did however keep the deer head, scraped off the remaining skin, and mounted it under our bow sprit. It cant be seen from the deck, and the grandparents will prolly be a little peeved when they finally see that it is there, hah.

We were in Beaufort, SC for Veterans Day, the parade was pretty funny, almost all high schools, which were all 80% percussion, and military units marching. There was also some dude pulling his motorboat on a trailer and a random city bus that I think just got lost. We also went into Savanna and Mark and I walked around town for 6 hours. Mark's friend picked us up and brought us into town and the two of us just walked around, it was much smaller than I thought it would be, and it pandered very much to the touristy, historic aspect of the whole thing, I dont think there was a single building that had been built in the last 100 years. We had to walk through a gated community to get to the river where our boat was anchored, and when we got back to the gate at 1 am, the security guard called the cops after he let us in, and 3 cop cars showed up to escort us to our dinghy, they were cool about it, they gave us a ride and we talked to the dude, it was a bit ridiculous though. We were on Herb River. Thanks Herb.

We woke up to a dense fog a couple days ago, it delayed us a bit in the morning, but we made good time after we set out. It is pretty amazing how much effect the wind and current effect our time. Currents can change your speed by 6 knots, depending on whether the tide is coming in or out. If you hit the currents right you can make 8 knots all day, hit them wrong and you struggle to make 4 knots.

Mark has been taking hundreds of pictures along our journey, I try to take the wheel whenever there is a good opportunity to take pictures, I get ahold of the camera every now and then too, there is so much to see. There should shortly be pictures of just about everything I have mentioned in the blog, enjoy the pictures and let me know what you think.

Cruising the ICW

I am currently anchored in Mile Hammock Bay, it has been awesome on the way down so far, we only ran aground once, and Mark was driving, so I still have a perfect record. Sunday I spent all day behind the wheel in the cold rain and I loved every minute of it. It is an interesting experience navigating the ICW, dealing with all the other boat traffic, the draw bridges and swing bridges, the anchorages and dockings. Its really cool. We have seen a few groups (schools) of porpoises on the ICW, they surface right at our bow, quite a sight. Speaking of our bow, I still feel awkward using sailing terms, like bow, stern, port, starboard, aft, fore, and all that jazz. Hopefully by the time i get back i will be rambling off that crap like a sesoned sailor. We have only been making like 20 miles a day, I am itching to get out of here, but obviously our boating partners have different plans. We are planning on getting out of Miami by Dec. 1st at the latest, gotta get down to Georgetown by the time people start coming in. One of our Spots is out of comission, you can follow our progress on the one below. I have only gotten one request for a shipment from the bahamas, yall need to give me some addresses. The lil cousins (Cuz cuz supreme and extreme) need their computer back, leave me something to read when i get back on here.

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0vRIce9fQLbigbsBespGiqesTXboO6kmO

Bahamas Bound

Tomorrow, we set sail.


We have GPS devices that upload our location to a website so that we can be tracked. Mark already had one for his train travels across the nation, and I will be using one from my Aunt, here are the sites.

My Spot

Mark's Spot

They just have a button to update our location and say that we are ok, which is currently the house in New Bern, one to say we need help, and one to call emergency people to our location, and they work anywhere because they work from GPS satellites, pretty sweet. So if you see the "help" signal... well thats not good. But that wont happen, we are prepared for anything the ocean can throw at us. I am looking forward to a successful adventure, and we start tomorrow, wish us luck, Ill miss you all.

Oh ya, and good luck with those elections. Too bad I wont be around for that. We will have internet access on the way down the ICW, so hopefully I will update you on the journey.

Get Real

I am going to be gone for a long time, and I will miss a lot of you people back home. In an effort to do something for you while I am gone, I thought maybe I could send something by mail. Maybe a postcard and a poem, maybe a seashell, maybe a solid gold pirate coin recovered from the depths, or maybe a vial containing insects carrying deadly exotic diseases. Depending on how much I like you. Also, depending on how much is costs to mail stuff out of the Bahamas. Send me your address if you want me to send you something BRawlings@gmail.com , or just leave a comment on here. Seriously do it, I don't care if I have never met you before, give me your address and I will mail you something cool from the Bahamas, ya, you, do it, please. Im going to have a lot of free time down there.

We set sail on Saturday. My Grandad, Grandmother, Brother Mark, Aunt Sheryl, Uncle Brian, and their daughters Erin and Geneva (12 and 13) have been working all week to get the boats ready, the excitement is really all we need to keep us going. My grandparents are really great people, and really are fun and very interesting, my Aunt and Uncle are as cool as they come, it will be great to hang out with them, and my cousins are both bright young ladies and they are quite entertaining. Perhaps the hardest part of all the preparations is getting rid of the stuff on my grandparents boat that has accumulated over the past years. They have not done a serious cleaning for a long time, and we need all the storage we can get. The past few days ave been spent taking every last thing off of the boat, and sorting through it in the garage, trying to get rid of everything that is not "mission critical". The most difficult part of this is convincing the grandparents that a lot of the stuff is not mission critical, it takes a heartless soul I do not posess to say no to some of these things. My Aunt Sheryl is particularly good at it. So now we have loads of food and all the equipment we need on board, the engine and sails are all working smoothly, and basically we just have to get ourselves on the boat and get out of here.
There were all kind of skeptics that we would be ready, that the boat would be ready, that the grandparents would be ready on time. Well we made it, there is nothing to stop us now. I hear all the time that when I am assessing a situation that I am suuuch an optimist. But some way or another it usually ends up happening just the way I said it would. The right way, the good way. So does that make me an optimist? I dont think so, I think it makes me a realist. If you go into a situation and you are confident in your goal and your abilities to get there, that really does a lot to make it happen. Worrying just wastes time that could be spent improving your situation. Does that mean I dont prepare for the worst? No, I'm not stupid, I know it is a possibility, just not one that deserves any more thought than making sure it does not happen. So here is to all you pessimists out there. Quit it. Cheer up. Stop thinking about the bad things happening in the here and now and think about the future, what possibilities it holds, and what you can do to make it happen. And don't lay your worries on other people, I dont mean never complain, I mean dont give out the execrable balls of gunk that enter your head every time you use it. If you think there is a 50% chance that we will not end up making the trip to the Bahamas, keep it to yourself, there are realists out there, and we need to keep hope that positive things will happen so that we can help make them happen. You can continue to float through life with that evil monkey camping in the back of your brain. Just get rid of those execrable balls of junk all together, they are not helping you, and they are certainly not helping anyone else. You need to get something out? Tell me, I am glad to listen. And you know what Ill do? I will tell you to cheer up, and that things will get better, and if you believe me, then maybe that is the first step towards making it happen. Im not trying to say that I never have pessimistic thought, I just dont let it control my actions. My grandad by chance today went on a binge calling himself an Eyore, and Mark and myself Tiggers, he says we are unflappable.

I am currently writing the last few words of my college career, and I set sail for the Bahamas on Saturday. Nobody can flap me now, life is good.

Drive

3,000 freakin miles. That is how far I have driven in the past month. Click that link, its a google map of my path. Finishing school, visiting the lady, the parents, friends, before heading out for good. I am now on my way down to New Bern for the last time, we will be meeting up with my uncle, aunt, and cousins, and then setting sail on the 1st of November after a few final preparations. It has only recently begun to dawn on me how long 7 months is to be away, and it is still incredibly exciting that all 7 will be spent exploring the Bahamas.

So in my recent travels, I Most of the drive was spent alone, so I did a lot of thinking, mostly about driving. I have a thing for efficiency, so I ended up thinking a lot about the most efficient way to travel. Many times when I drive, I try to drive the tangents of a curve, taking the shortest route as possible on a road. Think of it like a string was strung through the turns, when you pull the string tight, the path it takes is the most efficient possible path. In order to test my efficiency when making an effort to be efficient, i reset my odometer at mile 1 when I entered a new highway. At highway mile 2 the odometer read 1, by mile 40 the odometer read 39.5, and by mile 80, the odometer read 80, which means that my path was a mile longer than the marked highway miles after only 80 miles. whoever made those highway markers really knew how to ride the tangents. when I stopped making an effort to be efficient, I gained a mile on the highway markers after only 60 miles. They say that the most efficient speed for fuel economy is 55 mph. I buy it, it makes sense, but what about on hills? Is it just most fuel efficient to push down the pedal to go 55 on the straight parts or to actually go that speed. If you are going up a hill at 55 and keep your foot pressed on the gas at the same point, that will get you up to 80 on the downhill easily, I know, I tested it, multiple times. It is more efficient to go slower up hills, I have heard that many times, but they never talk about the other end of the hill, I say that it is more efficient to go 80 down hills. But dont do it. Thats is against the law.

As I drive down I-64 and take a turn, the full moon glows in front of me, and it gets me thinking. What if you were to take some kind of super space nuke and detonate it on the moon to disrupt its orbit and send it crashing into the earth? Aside from the mass destruction and the possible disruption of the entire world ecosystems, I think it would be a pretty interesting experience. The moon has a pretty strong gravitational pull, it controls the tides even from its distant orbit. Maybe if it were on the earth it would pull all the water from the other side of the world and leave a huge ex-ocean pit. There would be whales and sharks and all kinds of things flopping around everywhere. And whose would it be? I think I would also send out a separate rocket after the nuke, equipped with a flag reading "Brendonia" to claim the moon as my own before it crashed onto the Earth. The United States could have like an acre where Neil Armstrong staked his claim, but the rest would be mine. Maybe it would mess up earths orbit too, and send us crashing into the sun. Someone get Dr. Evil on the phone.

You will notice that I added some pictures to my gallery, take a look. There are some pictures of the dry docked boat, some critters, and some of the fellow Bahamian cruisers. Oh, and one of a milk float. Milk floats are one of the greatest inventions ever to be invented. Fill a cup with ice cream, pour milk over it, and daaaaaang is it good. I tried a Guinness float (Guinness poured over chocolate ice cream) the other day. That may sound like a sin, and I was reluctant to do it for fear of the beer Gods wrath, but I survived the experience, and the it was actually quite good.

Superman had to have been really smart, but they never mention this power. In his last movie he diagnosed Lois Lane with his x-ray vision to make sure she would be ok. It would take a fairly intimate understanding of the inner working of the human body to be able to confirm proper functioning at a glance, its not like they have an x-ray vision medical school, he learned all of that on his own. Of course, the x-rays may have given her cancer in the process, but it was necessary, superman dosnt have time for lead aprons.

Be remarkable

I have always been able to pick up on new things with relative ease, and when I put my mind to it I am pretty good at what I do, above average. But never remarkable. This is a trend in everything I do- soccer in highschool, I was pretty good, played varsity, knew my position well, but I wasnt remarkable. Track, I was the best triple jumper on the team with 40', but that wasnt even enough to get to states. Racquetball, I was great, it was rare that i found an opponent that could beat me, but every now and then i would meet one of those people who were remarkable, and they made me look like an amateur. Academics, I always breezed through my classes with little effort (well, except ochem) and always scored in the upper 5% on standardized tests, but look where that has gone, graduating with a mediocre GPA with a bio degree, really pretty unremarkable. I dont know if i have just not put in the effort it takes, but it seems that there has to be something out there at which I would be remarkable. Now that I am graduating and moving off into real life, it seems like I will never realize what that remarkable thing is and I am destined to live an unremarkable life. So find a way to be remarkable, and do it, and be remarkable, if only at that one thing. The world gains little to nothing if you are just above average, it is those who break world records, use their minds to create and improve the world around them, excelling in a manner that is unmatched by their peers, it is these people who are responsible for the betterment of mankind, who give us something to admire and to strive for, who give us a reason to be remarkable.

Edit: That last post was far more negative than I intended. I was just thinking about that while brushing my teeth one night and decided to put it up here. Just a thought. I am quite happy with my life, remarkability is perhaps too much to ask for, especially with my... efficient (haha) approach to life. Not everyone can be remarkable, by definition, if everyone were remarkable, it wouldnt be remarkable now would it. So be unremarkable, someones got to do it.

I bet you think this blog is about you

Currently I am in Philly crashing at Kari and Brooke's place, well... really... I am in Jersey, but i dont like to admit that, even to myself. Especially not the fact that my girlfriend lives in jersey. i sometimes cry at night. I did my final presentation on genetic modification of crops and nailed it, graduation here i come. wait whats that you say? Another paper? I have been in such denial that I even forgot about it myself? woops. OK, almost there. Comparative phage genomics lab report here I come. I have to do a kind of synopsis of the work we did on bacteriophages. We analyzed the entire genome of the "Halo" bacteriophage, using possible start and stop codons to guess where genes start and stop, then excise one of the genes, then take the altered genome, replicate it by infecting a bacteria with the phage, and see what the consequences of removing the gene are. Awesome right? and now I have to write a 10orso page paper on it. But thennnn I graduate! probably!

If you have a friend who makes a stupid decision and does something that a significant other wouldnt like, it is that friends decision when or how or whether to tell the significant other right? dont take it into your own hands. That is crappy behavior.

I just used the word vain, and it makes me think of that song "You're so vain, I bet you think this song is about you". oh ya? Who the hell is it about then. There is one guy who thinks that song is about him, he is described at length, and it is about that one guy, so he is not vain, thats bull. And if there are a bunch of guys who think you are writing songs about them, well then youre just a slut Carly Simon.

I have had intentions of keeping a dream log many times in the past, it never happens though, dreams are really amazing, it is kind of mind blowing when you think about what is really going on. Like hypnotism, thats crazy too, the mind is so complex it ridiculous. My family was in a hypnotism show once at a family reunion, I tried to be hypnotised with the rest but it didnt work, I think its because my mind is constantly bouncing around, I cant concentrate on the hypnosis for long enough. My brothers and dad were under though, Mark ended up in some kind of crazy hypnocoma and was like shuddering unresponsive on his chair, so the guy took him out, Alan had to pee and was wiggling around the whole time, eventually when they were all sitting down, he just tipped over forward straight onto his head and came out of it. My dad went through the whole thing, thinking he was in airplanes, driving cars, at the horse track (his horse was "Osama Bin Ridin"), it was hilarious to watch everyone on stage doing these ridiculous things. One girl kept being bitten by her chair, one guy said "I have a boo boo and i need a band aid" every time anyone touched him, and placed the multi colored bandaids wherever he was touched. Most of them remembered nothing, and everyone said they felt very well rested, like they had a full nights sleep. If i hadnt witnessed it myself, I would have doubts that hypnotism is real, but it is. somehow.

Anyway, the dreams thing, I wish I could remember my dreams, which is what the log is supposed to help. just last night a had some elaborate dream, but now all I can remember is being in Peters riding down the trail on a go cart from Beths house. I miss that trail, there were a lot of good times- the races I've run, the biking I've done, the blading, the walking, the sneaking, the stalking, oh the felonies we committed. The TP we covered the trees in, the pranks of the cross country season, the secretive late night cruises, all of the scratches and bruises, the examples are ample, but thats just a small sample, dont ask me whats been omitted.
That was some Dr. Seuss shit right there. Tell me about some crazy dreams.

Back in the Burgh for a bit

I have made my way back from New Bern and I am crashing at Zack and Sara's house for the moment. Its good to have friends around. I went mountin bikin with Nick and Backa for the first time in many months, it was pretty amazing to get back out on the trails. I took a few spills here and there, and then blew my tire at about the point where we were furthest from the car. I jogged the bike back, and on the way I took my worst spill of the day, I was just jogging along and I dont even know what happened but I ended up face down in the dirt with the bike on top of me... I do fine flying down the trails weaving in and out of trees at high speed, but then when i start jogging... haha, oh well.

Kari and I were bored one evening and decided, for some reason, to post personal ads on craigslist just to amuse ourselves with the responses. We both wrote up our ads (now that I look at it again, I wrote way too much, hah, but apparently I have a tendancy to do that, see: this post), trying to write whatever we could to get the most responses (which was basically all true, since we are the pinnacle of human perfection), and sent all the responses to the same email address. I feel horrible. Some of the girls that responded are really genuinely interested, and they seem like nice, decent people. The first one I got, 40 minutes after posting it, she said at the end "PS please write back, even if you are not interested, just so i know." Damnit! that made me feel like crap. So I responded to most of them, complimenting them in some way and making up some reason for rejection. The guys that responded to Kari are a different story. Lets just say we had some fun with them. There were 40 year old guys, total sleazebags, and even a few women (well in reality, it was probably more 40 year old guys) that responded to Kari, I think she has recieved over 200 responses so far... I got like 20. It is kind of sad that the biggest way to meet other single people is the bar scene, it was a common trend in the messages that they were "tired of the bar scene", but to resort to craigslist after that? well, seems like there could be some better options, although I do know a couple who met on craigslist... and they just got engaged.

I used to wear itchy shirts to church on purpose. I would sit in church and conocentrate on not itching the itchy spots. Just sit there dead still and concentrate. Church was not my thing. Ever. Since grade school, I would be sitting in church, nothing exciting going on, just sitting there, probably zoning out, and my heart rate would go up and my chest would kind of feel funny, like tighten up. I started measuring my heart rate, which is around 50 bpm resting, and it would get up to around 120 every week. I still have no idea why. Maybe I am allergic to ignorance. When I was getting my surgeries from the accident, as i lay in pre op with the monitors attached, they would yell at me constantly for having too low a bpm and not breathing enough, apparently a 38 bpm and breathing 5 times a minute wasnt good enough for them, I was just relaxed though.

One of my hobbies: when driving a manual transmission, try not to use the brakes at all to stop. Im pretty good at it.

Passive aggressiveness is possibly the absolute worst way that one could choose to make a point.

I have gotten into the show Heroes. I appreciate the whole evolution of human beings aspect of it, as far fetched as it is.

Teh southern ocean?

It has been a busy few days. We painted the bottom of the boat in the shipyard. We used a paint that is 70% copper, it was crazy heavy, and cost something like $250 a gallon. It keeps the blistering barnacles from attaching to the hull cause of the high copper content, which also means it is bad for humans, which means that it creates an annoying nagging sting when it gets on your skin, and it is really hard to get off, and I painted the entire hull, which means I had a lot of tiny little stinging spots all over my legs and arms. It was fun. We replaced the bilge pump, got the head in working order, and then took a crane ride back into the water. The sail back was great, we ran aground once on the way out of the channel, that was a little scary, but educational. The rest of the sail was great, with a reefed main we were doing around 8 knots and heeling like the dickens, I dont think I will ever get tired of that. I am at my aunt's now on my way back to Pittsburgh, I will be there, or Indiana, or Philly until the end of October, so if you are in any of those places, you should get ahold of me somehow.


Two of my hobbies: You know those ads that have little games that if you win you get a free ipod or a free trip to Rwanda or some such crap? Lose them. Its fun, and usually more difficult than winning. Like getting the quarter in the cup or shooting the robber or making the fieldgoal. Another hobby: writing out typos by hand. like OMG thats teh bset evarrr!!!!!11 Like that. Well, maybe not thats last one.

Southern Ocean... what?? This is like some Pluto bullcrap. You cannot just add an ocean. You cant! I think that pisses me off more than taking away pluto's planetory status. Can anyone find anything that gives definative barriers for the oceans? I cant. There is too much confusion, there needs to be a meeting. Someone call teh Prez. or Congress at least. Maybe Chuck Norris can help. Though, thats what I said about Pluto. Planetoid my ass. What is this world coming too.

And yes mom, I finished my paper and just did my presentation, they are all going out to buy some genetically modified food tomorrow.

Sale, hahah

We finally set the sailboat in motion on the ocean today on our way down the Neuse river. The teak looks good, the sails were perfectly functional, the motor ran great, it was smooooth sailing. Only real problems we had were the knot meter wasnt working (because blistering barnacles blatantly barraged below), and the head backed up. Why they called it the head, i have no idea, because it has everything to do with the totally opposite end of the body. So, that is never a good time. We made our way to a marina about 20 miles down the river to get the boat taken out of the water and dry docked, it is a pretty incredible sight to see a 10 ton boat lifted out of the water and carted around the shipyard.

I hate walking. It is so slow, and it makes my legs hurt. When I wasnt biking, I used to jog to class, I must have looked ridiculous jogging down the street with my backpack everyday. It stems from the whole efficiency thing i think, and maybe a bit... or a lot from my lack of patience. Come to think of it, maybe a lot of that desire for efficiency comes from impatience. I have recently decided that is not a bad thing. My patience is tried a lot out here, and I try to do my best to contain myself, but im afraid that sometimes I dont... It is much easier to say it is a desire for efficiency than impatience, I think i will just stick with that.

I think that when typing a laugh. well first of all, "lol" is out of the question, no normal person says lol. I am here to talk to you about "haha". I think it is important to convey how funny something is by adding or subtracting "ha"s. An awkward situation or a bad or slightly offensive joke deserves a "ha", something of average humor merits a "haha", which is the accepted generic form of this method of laugh conveyance, and when something is particularly funny, a situation which constitutes an actual laugh out loud in real life, that is when you can pull out the extra "ha"s. That is where the problem lies with "lol". Are you really laughing out loud? ya, i doubt it, it is way too overused and has therefore become obsolete. "ha"s also offer far more versatility, you can really get across how you feel about a joke, like that fowl joke??? hahahahahaaaa! you see the extra "a"s on the end there? you read that and do it in your head, you say that last ha in your head. And say youre not sure how many "ha"s a comment merits, there are methodsto overcome this! What you have to do is commit a faux typo, a faupo, fopo? fypo? anyway, what you do, is add on a rogue h or a to the end, or if appropriate in the middle, of your "ha"ing and it is left up to the discression of the recipient whether you meant it to be a whole "ha" or whether it was an accidental addition. think about it: hahah... was that a laughing out loud hahaha or a generic haha with an accidental h added? noone knows but you, and thats how you want to keep it. Use your "ha"s wisely. good luck.

))<>((

Procrastinatory

Here I am, supposed to be writing my paper to finally finish school, so I write now as a distraction more than any other reason. I only have 2 papers left to complete my G grades from spring semester and I will be a Pitt graduate. I am impressed even with my own ability to procrastinate. These papers were due about 5 months ago. New record. Though I dont think getting hit by a car is worth that impressive procrastinatory feat.
I am the definition of a procrastinator. I like to think of it as operating most efficiently. if you think about it, if you are going to spend only 5 hours studying, no more no less, wouldnt you say that best time to study would be right before the test? I would think so too, that is the premise under which i operate. I have spent many many sleepless nights studying for tests, literally staying up the entire night cramming, almost every night before a big test in my college career, only in Ochem did this method ever fail me. I am pretty sure I took a week off my life every time i pulled an all nighter, although when I think about it, when i am old and decrepit, I think I would gladly give up a week of my life for just 12 hours of my college years.
I try to operate as efficiently as possible in everyday life. I didnt really realize how many of my habits result from an atttempt to be efficient until walking with Kari one day, who insists on using crosswalks, and it really bothering me to go to the end of the street, and cross at a 90 degree angle. Diagonals! It is far more efficient to walk a diagonal across the street, and I now realize that I make a significant effort to walk diagonals. Im like a bishop, hah, get it? diagonals? oh you're useless... like in chess? nowww you got it.

Hey, I kinda wanna know who is reading this, leave a comment.

Go Steelers by the way. Polamalu just got an interception. He rules.

Secular Humanist

Today, as we were working on the boat, my brother asked what task I wanted, and I took the more difficult task, thinking that he would offer to trade later, or at least willingly trade if I asked. In my head I was doing something nice, but in retrospect, if I had it in mind that the action would later be reciprocated for my benefit, the act was never really an altruistic action in the first place. This got me thinking about altruism. I never thought that it existed, and I defy you to think of an action that is truly altruistic. Do you ever do anything without expecting some kind of reciprocal benefit as a result of that action? I had a discourse with the philosophy of religion teacher at Pitt, who Brooke reffered to me when she thought I would enjoy joining the discussion that was budding. In my boredom while we worked I was reminded of that conversation. I ended up writing a pretty intense summary of my beliefs on how morality could have evolved strictly through darwinian theory, and I think I accomplished my task quite well. I will copy it here, I would like to think it is worth reading, give it a glance. Brooke had mentioned to him that I describe myself as a secular humanist.

Tony, the prof, says:

Brooke,

"Secular humanism" is a very curious phrase.

1. How does your friend define it?

2. Does he have views about what is the case, or only about what is not the
case?

3. What are his arguments for his views?

4. What, in particular, are his arguments for common sense, ethics, and
(democratic?) politics?

In short, if you want to make it a worthwhile discussion, then he has to
accept the burden of proof for what he holds, just as you have to accept
the burden of proof for what you hold. He can't just hide out in some
duck-blind and shoot at your ducks.

Bon appetit.
Tony

--------------------

My Response:

Ha, well first of all I definitely stand right out in the open when I shoot at your ducks with a big ol sign begging you to shoot back, and when when the ammunition is a "burden of proof"... I like to think I'm packin' a pretty strong arsenal (i went way too far with the duck shooting analogy didnt I, haha), but anyway... When I call myself a secular humanist i do so only because it is sometimes convenient to have someone to align yourself with. I place a burden on myself as a humanist of my own definition to strive towards the truth as best as i can and more generally place the burden on humanity to do the same in order to advance towards the truth that my astronomy teacher in a rare moment of actually interesting lecture called "the reality state". He said that science in the past was flawed and incapable of achieving this "reality state", giving the example of the human heart, there were many previous theories about how the whole blood and guts thing worked, but we now know through adequate science exactly how the heart works and the blood pumps. I also believe that through modern science we are advancing towards this "reality state" and that God plays no part in it. I like to base my views on the most logical scientifically or philosophically sound argument or I can think of or have come across, relying on the words and ideas of people like Darwin, Dawkins, and Hobbes, and never Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Specifically addressing ethics and politics I would argue that, evolutionarily, humanity has come to gain from a tendency to operate as a progressing social group, which promotes ethics, and the resulting upholding of these ethics, ultimately leading to a political system. I could go on but I think thats enough for now, hah.


------------------------------------

Tony responds:

Hi, Brooke,

Your friend writes:

> Specifically addressing ethics and politics I would argue that,
> evolutionarily, humanity has come to gain from a tendency to operate as a
> progressing social group, which promotes ethics, and the resulting
> upholding of these ethics, ultimately leading to a political system. I

> could go on but I think that's enough for now, hah.

My views are probably closer to his than yours, but not on this point. If
he tries to turn this sketchy remark into a deductive argument from truths
of evolution to norms of ethics, he'll find himself trying to deduce
"ought"-judgments from "is"-judgments--i.e., he'll be committing non
sequiturs. His uses of "gain" and "progressing" hide this problem, since
in his remark they do double--i.e., equivocal--duties as value-free terms
in biology and as value-laden terms in ethics.

In short, invite him to provide the argument that he "would argue". ("Pay
up, Buster.") Then, when he sees how awful it is, encourage him to read
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.


---------------------------------------------

I respond:
When I said I could go on, I meant it, haha. I didn't want to go into it if that wasnt where we were going, but I guess if he wants it, I will be glad to put my thought into words.
Most of the studies I refer to I learned about in my animal behavior and evolution classes, I wrote this sitting at work without any references, so I didnt cite my sources, but I am confident in the validity of the data I gave, as I didnt have to go into much detail to get the point across.

In order to try to rationalize an evolution of morality and politics, I am hardly an expert, but I will try to use what I have learned as a student of biology to deduce a mechanism for the production of ethical norms from evolutionary fact. Aristotle's Nicomachaen Ethics does not seem to address the issue i thought was at hand, it certainly addresses the "why" of ethics, but I think the more relevant issue is the "how". In an effort to unearth how ethics came to be, the whys would be inherent in the production of the mechanism, and if a reasonable scientific solution can be reached, it would hopefully stand as a physical culmination of many of the philosophies presented by Aristotle.

One of the first problems encountered is how this act of apparent altruism has any place in the dog eat dog world that exists under the rules for survival first set in place by Darwin in his Origin of Species. When the purpose of life is above all to most effectively spread your genes. The many factors that can influence the fitness of your genes include most effectively producing offspring, increasing the fitness of those offspring, as well as increasing the fitness of those with similar genetic makeup to your own, which includes parents, siblings, cousins, and so forth. Perhaps the most obvious display of altruism in animals is the colony life of insects such as bees and ants. As would be predicted by Darwin's theory, the insects have a high genetic similarity, due to the haplo-diploid genetic structure, and the common mother (the queen). The colonies consist of almost all females, who actually mathematically gain significantly more genetic fitness by assisting their queen in the production of more siblings than they would from creating progeny by mating themselves (this is due to the haplo-diploid genetic make up of the bees). I have seen studies on behavior in lions, meercats, naked mole rats, and many other species that act as a group. The "altruistic" behaviors are linked significantly to who is a benefactor (kin or not), with the behavior increasing with increasing genetic relatedness. This shows that what appears to be altruistic behavior from the bees and others is actually done for their own good. Another behavioral phenomena I think is relevant is the mobbing behavior that has been observed in seagulls. When a seagulls nest is approached by a predator, the neighboring gulls will attack the predator together, regardless of whether the nest being attacked is their kin's or not. The interesting part of this study was in the reciprocation of the mobbing. If a gull did not partake in the mobbing of a predator for someones nest, the response to an attack on its own nest would be greatly decreased. Once again showing the trend that these seemingly altruistic acts have an effect on the individuals own fitness, whether it be from direct benefit to kin, or indirectly through reciprocation of an initially selfless act.

Using these ideas, one can construct a theoretical mechanism for the establishment of the ethics system present in todays society. The behavior of the seagulls displayed a fairly high level of understanding, with the apparent understanding that in the future their actions would be rewarded. The capacity of a human to make this connection, in the nomadic group structure of early homosapien, would presumably be even greater, allowing for more of these types of behaviors at a higher level than the gulls. One can imagine what society would be like if we didn't have these "selfless" behaviors instilled in us. It would be brutal, unorganized, every man for himself warfare, our lifespans would no doubt be shortened, our children less likely to survive, and general health would diminish dramatically, resulting in a decrease in our fitness. It is not out of selflessness that we strive to uphold the ethics of our society, it is through an understanding that our efforts will be reciprocated by those around us. There are no altruistic acts, there is no "for the greater good", there are only individuals helping to create an environment that best suits their own needs. These behaviors developed in individuals operating completely through the devices of Darwinian evolutionary theory.

----------------------------------


He replys:

Your friend doesn't see the task at hand. He offers causes of ethical
behavior instead of reasons for being ethical.

-and he wrote a few interspersals through my response which just echo these arbitrary philosophical meaningless discrepencies. I could see he was going down a road in which these same meaningless questions would lead down an ugly road to nowhere (which I think is often the case when a philosopher gets to a point of confusion in a duscussion), so I chose to end the conversation here. The causes for being ethical that I presented are the reason. There is no reason for all this philosophical crap, I put it all on the page, straightforward clear cut science. The cause is the reason.

a.k.a. I win. Go science.



So, let me know what you think if you read through it. I will be especially pleased if you find a problem with what I said.

Ice pops and bus drivers

Man, I love ice pops. I got my grandad into ice pops. We have already gone through 200 in a week I think. Had to go to the hospital last night, my grandad was having trouble breathing and had a temperature, so we went, just to be safe, but he is fine now, it was nothing big, I think he just needed a couple ice pops. The orange ice pops are freakin nuts though. One killed a pudding pop once, right in my freezer. Maybe he ate too many orange ice pops.

The bus drivers in Kentucky are ridiiiculous. The first year I lived there my bus driver was some old dude who just turned off his hearing aid for the whole trip. He stopped in a parking lot on the first day and told us if we scream too loud he will have Nam flashbacks and freak out. The next year the dude stopped again and told us that he was in the war and he was 50% retarded cause he fell out of an airplane. normally he would go to 2 neighborhoods, but a couple times he would jsut forget and go right past the second one, and we didnt tell him till we got to school, and he would get all pissed and then speed back to try to get the kids, haha. And once when we went over the train tracks, he tried to beat the bars that come down, but they came down right on top of the bus. He wasnt our bus driver anymore after that.

We have wine at 9 every day. Port at 9 is not the same. Mark got some nasty dessert wine called port. not reccomended.

I miss poker.

There is a spot on my chest a couple inches under my scar on my neck from the accident that when i touch it, it feels like I am touching the scar, but really I am touching 2 inches below it. Its freakin weird.

au natural

I work on the sailboat, every day, with my brother and grandad. Today we scraped the teak trimmings on the deck to refinish it, we got it scraped down, and the teak has a really nice natural color to it, it looked good on the boat. So im thinking, man, this would be easy to just clear coat, no need to tape the edges around the deck, you can be sloppy, lets just clear coat it. But no. We have to stain it. What color is the new expensive stain he just bought? NATURAL TEAK! we are staining the natural teak... natural teak. ya, me neither.

My brother and I were looking at hurricane Ike a few days ago, debating over its path. He said he thought it woudl make landfall north of florida, following the route of Hanna. I said theres no way it will hit north of Florida. So we make a bet. One shiny nickel, I think it will hit florida, he thinks it will not. And damned if the bastard dosnt take a turn to the south, just for me, btu then it keeps going... and going... and now the thing is MISSING FLORIDA to the SOUTH! So, I effing lose the bet. Im sorry to everyone who lives there, but i really hope Ike clips the Keys. There are nickles at stake here.

Foul Joke

I thought of a joke yesterday.

A duck, a chicken, and a goose walk into a strip club, and the... well... maybe I shouldnt post it here. It really is a fowl joke.

GET IT?

GET IT??? FOWL?!???

Ya, I know, I have already begun my plans to go on tour. But really, I think that joke is just way more fun to tell. You tell that joke to someone and try not to laugh yourself. Sure they might not laugh, but maybe the joke teller deserves a little bit of the benefit sometimes, screw the audience, tell my joke.

What the crap does "make do" mean? thats just two verbs. right in a row. nonsense. and somehow it means to deal with the situation that you are in. stupid. make. do. shut up.

I hear Kim Jong Il is dead. Woah.


fowl joke. hahahahaaaa.

Bald Nazi

I wanted a haircut, but only had a razor, and this happened. It takes a long time to shave your head, and it kinda hurts, especially without shaving cream. I dont know why I didnt use shaving cream. It is nice and easy though, having a shaved head. All the old sailor men at the boat dock say I look good, no doubt they are just trying to legitimize their own shiny craniums. Already multiple people have accused me of being a nazi, I cant think of why people associate baldness with nazism, I dont think Hitler advocated shave heads.

So. Blog.

As I sit here in North Carolina and go through my AIM list, Google talk list, and whatever other means of casual contact with the outside world I have available, I realize that you all are busy, with jobs, school, whatever it is. You living your real lives. I am kind of idly sitting by waiting until real life punches me in the face. So I decided to start a blog. I need some way to share my thoughts and experiences, it is tough when you are alone. So, I imagine I will be putting some pretty random stuff on here, I don't even know if I expect anyone to read this crap, I kinda just want to do it. I realize that you may read some of this and think "who the hell would possibly care about that, why would you put that on the internet", I know I have said that to myself many times, but the answer is that I am doing this largely for my own entertainment. So, respond if you want, criticize, argue, agree, call me stupid, praise my genious, you know, whatever.

Well. I am currently in New Bern, North Carolina at my grandparents house and we are readying their 36' sailboat for a trip to the Bahamas. My brother and I are down here, we will be painting, cleaning, organizing, fixing, breaking, dirtying up the place until we leave in the end of October. My uncle, aunt and their two daughters are joining up with us in the next month and will be joining us on the trip. We will be in the Bahamas for 6-9 months, and it will be awesome. If you have any urge to run away to the Bahamas some time between November and June, I can arrange a free bed on a luxurious 36' sailboat for you. December is already pretty well booked, get your reservations in early. Location of said sailboat subject to change without notice. Price and participation may vary.

So, hopefully I will update this sucker every few days, put pictures up and whatnot, and speaking of which, I lost my camera when moving from my apartment, anyone know where that is?

Hurricane Hanna blew through here last night, it was fairly exciting, I was hoping for more carnage, like looting, some stuff on fire, maybe horses running loose in the streets, but it was just crazy windy an rainy. Couple trees fell over. It was OK.

Allright, I'm done for now. I am officially a blogger.